Time That Passed
by StormDragon666
Summary: In which a second race exists alongside humans: the felis. The cat-like. Rare ones would have dreams of their future. A redheaded prince among them dreamt of his future mate when she was only a child. He sought her out and watched her grow up beside him. Members of the court to this day spit out their wine when they hear tales of her delightful antics. SasoSaku, OOC like omg.
1. I

You guys wouldn't believe how long this idea has been in my head. At least…back to November. Of 2007. It's March now. I would need several hands to count the times I went to bed thinking of ideas for this story and smiling at Sasori's image in my head and asking myself, "Should I write this tomorrow?" Well here I freaking go. It got its inspiration boost from a book. The Dorling-Kindersley Handbook of Horses. Seriously. (When I was a kid I wanted a saddlebred, a dark brown male with white stockings named Cloud, and a female appaloosa whose name I never decided.) Amazing how completely off-subject stuff will get you back on-subject at the most random moment.

Another reason I was slow with writing this was because I wondered if it was too weird, if people would think freaky things of me for posting it. Now I laugh at myself for ever thinking that. Straight characters are made into gay prostitutes in fanfiction. My ideas aren't _that _weird, and if you think they are, browse the fanfiction archives for thirty seconds and find out.

I better get on with this…to see if it turns out anything like what I daydreamed. I will try to keep it a two-shot or three-shot, but if it turns into a multi-chapter story, then…we'll deal with that. Oh, and to honor the book that finally got me to writing this, I will include horses as something of a story element. See if you can find all the references.

Oh, also, the humanoid race felis is pronounced FEE-liss. Not any other way you might be thinking.

**Sasori is so goddamn OOC here that, were I a character in the Naruto world, he would seek me out and drive his thumbs into my eyes and hang me from the ceiling of a maggot-infested building by my fingernails till I starved to death. I warned you.**

Hope this turns out okay.

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At the Information Vault

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Once upon a time that we won't bother to name, there was a second race of humanoids. They lived alongside humans perfectly well, fought alongside them, befriended them, bred with them, lived together in as much harmony as could possibly be, and so on. This second race was called Felis, a usage of the latin word "felis," meaning cat or cat-like. They were called so because of their two feline traits.

Ears and tails.

A felis had four ears, two "human" ears on each side of their head and two feline ears near the top, that were usually the same color as their hair. They also had tails, of varying lengths, that also typically matched their hair color. There were cases, however, of a felis having cat ears but no tail, or a tail but not ears. It was considered rare, but not bad.

Another felis trait was longevity; an average lifespan was about nine hundred and fifty years. If a human and a felis had a child together, the resulting half-breed (half-breeds almost always had felis ears and tails) was not plagued by racism as you may think. To do so would be pointlessly foolish, like judging a person by their number of eyelashes. A half-breed's lifespan was near four hundred years.

Most felis aged like humans for the first two decades or so of their lives. A human child of ten years would look just the same as a felis child of ten years. But while the human would be graying and aged around fifty, the felis would still appear to be in its twenties, still youthful. They rarely appeared to age beyond that, and most likely when a felis died after centuries of life it would still appear as it did when it was twenty years old.

The world in which our tale takes place was made up of five oceans that we won't bother to name right now, and four continents that we _will _bother to name, because it's quite important to the story, you see. There were three large continents, and one that was considerably gigantic. In order of smallest to largest, their names were Konik, Noriker, Caspia, and Fell. Each of these continents boasted a king and a queen (excluding Caspia at this time, whose queen fell to sickness, and Fell, whose king and queen had died three centuries ago) who were both pleasing figureheads to the people and their own political powers. Konik and Caspia had human rulers, and Fell and Noriker had felis ones. It had been this way for more millennia than can be counted.

The story I'm getting comfy enough to tell you is focusing on two inhabitants of Fell, the largest and most powerful continent by far. Here, we'll get to know the prince and the one he chose to be his beloved. Said beloved never really gave her consent for the prince's choice, but never really resisted either.

And here we begin, with our prince, when he first realizes the identity of the one he plans to have.

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March 28th, very early in the morning or extremely late at night, depending on one's views

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The felis were also known for prophetic dreams. When one person, a human, witnesses an event, and connects the event with a dream they had, their friend may laugh good-humoredly and say, "Oh, so you're a felis now?" Felis didn't have prophetic dreams often, in fact, it was a rarity among the species. Some one in a hundred of them ever did. It was mostly a few famous dreams of a few famous felis that made the strange ability so famous. We are extremely lucky to see this one felis in a hundred right now.

He's sleeping, you see, looking much more innocent than he really is, in his private chamber, in the castle that had housed his ancestors and their servants for more years than he could imagine. There, on a bed large enough for two, covered with sheets of only the finest silk, Akasuna no Sasori was having his first, last and only prophetic dream, for he was a felis. He was the prince of Fell, the largest continent, and within a few decades, when he was king, he would hold the most powerful political position on earth. And here he was, panting and sweating and wondering what he was seeing in this dream.

Oddly, he was completely aware it was a dream, and knew he could make himself wake up if he wanted. The space around him was black, but occasionally it would light up with sudden, speedy images, or sounds would come out of nowhere and he would strain his ears to hear it. He was after all, a felis with no cat ears. Only his age—still quite young for a felis—and his long, red tail marked him as a non-human.

For three or four seconds, he saw shaky images of a blonde felis woman, who oddly showed signs of aging, laying on a four-post bed and panting. She was pregnant, in labor. Another woman was besides her, a dark-haired, skinny one, supposedly the nurse, helping her through the delivery. The image turned to black immediately, and humming sounds reverberated all around him. He heard the soft breathing of a newborn, the excited exclamations of the mother and the nurse, about how little she was, her eyes, her lovely ears. Sasori never once heard the child cry.

He must have skipped time then, because the next thing he saw was the felis woman, no longer pregnant, but looking happier than ever in a grey shirt of fine satin. She leaned casually against a fence, and Sasori could see two large draft horses in the background. Beyond them was a flourishing, flowering meadow, undoubtedly a peaceful and near-perfect place to live. Then he saw the nurse woman, apparently a relative and not a nurse if she was living there, walk into the scene with two china cups in her hand. Their voices were distant, muffled. He felt he should hear what they were saying.

The dark-haired woman who had been a nurse before suddenly put up a hand and waved to someone, and a child entered, stage left. He could see only the top of her head, her refreshingly striking _pink_hairand little, pointed felis ears. The child couldn't have been older than seven. The blonde woman reached in front of the skinnier one and picked the girl up. She set her down on top of the fencepost, where she sat comfortably, talking to the dark-haired woman. She was small and skinny and wearing clothes that were a smidge too big, hair cropped up to her shoulders, and had eyes that were bright and wild.

The image changed, warped, destroyed itself. A little noise like static sounded all around; another image lit up suddenly.

The girl was much older now, perhaps her mid or late teen years. She was walking, and he was looking at her back clothed in an athletic, sleeveless and silken vest. She had changed little since the last picture; her hair was still pink as a sakura tree, hair cut short and close to her shoulders, and her body still appeared lean. She turned around suddenly, showing the same fiery emerald eyes and face in the perfect shape of a heart. Her smile was positively brilliant.

A jolt. A thunderous jolt in his chest. His heart recognized something. Wanted something.

The girl, the pink-haired and green-eyed child of the blonde felis, was what his heart recognized. That little girl would grow up to be his mate, his lover. The queen of Fell.

I must apologize for not explaining to you before, dear listener. It's not uncommon for a felis to _feel _when they're near their life partner, or dream about them now and again before they've met them. In fact, most felis who have prophetic dreams report the dream featuring their life partner. Rarely was such a dream about anything else, and if it was, it usually wasn't good for you. And here was another example.

You'd think he'd shoot up in bed after waking from a dream that could change his life, but not the Sasori. No, he was a mellow sort of man, who would show anger only when he meant to kill and happiness and amusement only when it was perfectly suitable. Perhaps that personality combined with his natural looks was what made the local girls, felis and human alike, so incredibly attracted to him.

So, instead, he opened his eyes slowly, lazily, happy to flounder around in the fact that a large piece of his life had just been completed very easily, and in a few years he would be a much happier man. But the child had appeared six or seven years old—he'd obviously seen a future image—and he could sense that she had been born tonight, the 28th of March, just a few hours after midnight. It would be half a decade at least before the scene he'd witnessed just a minute ago came to be reality. It would be six or seven years before he sought out that lush place, sought out that girl whose hair was like sakura trees, before he brought her to his home where she belonged.

Until then he had plenty to do. There were always political or combat issues to dissolve and discuss or take part in, and out of uncharacteristic laziness he'd been avoiding most of it in the past few weeks. He blamed his idiotic friend Deidara—who stupidly called himself the prince's "Secretary"—completely. Hopefully in the next few years some of those issues would be gone and less would come, and he could work out some damn free time for himself, and some to be shared between he and the wild-eyed blossom.

Naively young or not, it had been her eyes that caught his attention before anything else. They'd been absolutely aflame with emerald fire, a strength and independence and freedom, in body and spirit, something that would surely help her achieve great things in her lifetime.

She'd already unknowingly achieved one: the attention of one of the world's most powerful individuals.

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Years later, on the 6th of May, at noon exactly

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It was something of a stereotype on all continents but Caspia, which often tended to be sophisticated and classy and too busy being up on its high horse to even look at such things. But on Noriker, Konik and Fell, it _was _a stereotype, and true to stereotypes, sometimes it was true.

The stereotype was this: a family or person, human or felis, was measured in wealth by how many horses they owned.

There were plenty of rich families with but one horse, or poorer families with plenty of them, and it didn't make them any less wealthy, so thusly the statement above would be dubbed a stereotype. The family we're going to focus on here was an average little farm made up of three felis women, or rather, two women and a little girl. The family owned five horses, an average number.

It was made up of Tsunade Hokage, the "head" of the family, four hundred and one years old and Shizune Hokage, Tsunade's younger sister by a hundred and fifty-six years, thus making her two hundred and forty-three, and Tsunade's daughter, Sakura Hokage. Sakura was only a few months over seven years old, and was Tsunade's first and only child.

She had no father. Sakura had been a virgin birth; Tsunade had not lain in bed with a man to get pregnant with her. One day, she simply went to the nearest town doctor for a checkup, and found she was three months along.

Tsunade was damn glad. With or without a man's help, there could never have been such a wild beauty as her daughter.

No one really knew what it was about Sakura that made her as in tune with Mother Nature as she was. It just was _there, _and the other little farm families that surrounded Tsunade's smiled admiringly and accepted it. Sakura was a thing of the outdoors. Rain or shine, snow or sleet, she would be outside, watching or riding her horses, running in the fields, climbing trees, cloud watching, swimming, berry picking. She frequently came home barefoot, scratched and scruffy and wet and smelling like the wind and looking quite content with the world. _In_frequently, though, was she hurt by nature.

No matter how much the petite girl swam, she never came home with leeches or a cold. No matter how much she ran over the hills and through the grass the scratches on her legs were never serious. No matter how many times she dove into a thorny bush to retrieve its berries or flowers, the bleeding cuts were never infected, and always healed quickly. Nature herself seemed to love the girl, perhaps because she was just as free and beautiful as nature, because within nature was her favorite place to be. Whatever the reason was, Sakura's life was near perfect and the natural world only made it better.

As it were, right now Sakura sat on her favorite fencepost, looking into the square-shaped corral and watching her family's horses grazing and lazing about. Though only one of these horses had been specifically bought for Sakura, she thought of all of them as hers, and the horses all thought of the pink-haired child as theirs.

Firstly, there was the most recent addition to the horse family, whom Shizune had bought for Sakura's third birthday. He was a Noriker trotter, a breed well known for their easy riding and smooth running gait. His coat was a sleek and smooth reddish-gold all the more beautified by the white blaze on his face. Sakura had named him Foxtrot, after a foolish dance her slightly drunken mother had been dancing as Sakura first climbed onto the horse.

The two oldest horses, nearly fifty years old (still quite youthful in this strange world), were twins, both huge draft horses whose job it was to pull wagons and plows and do it with ease. They were pale brown shire horses with white feet, perhaps the biggest type of horse there was, notable for their "furry" hooves and overall hugeness. These were both females, named Renee and Ruki.

Camille was a shagya, a species from the colder, northern parts of Konik, a species of horse that was almost always white or whitish-grey and whose coat was always a bit thicker than one's average horse. Camille herself was perfectly white excluding black hooves and eyes, and was the gentlest creature to ever be born.

Last but not least was Maraconn, the mountain pony, who was Tsunade and Shizune's most-used "leisure horse," a creature used more for free riding than working. Maraconn's coat was smooth and perfect and whitish-grey, but her teeth were nearly yellow from all the sweets she stole from Sakura's pocket.

At the moment, Sakura was laughing and struggling not to be knocked off the fencepost by Foxtrot and Ruki, who were nuzzling into her face like they usually did when they were happy or affectionate. Sakura's expert felis hearing could detect Maraconn creeping up, hoping to steal the peppermints she had in her trouser pocket.

Her wide pink ears pricked up suddenly, and all the horses pricked their ears, too, turning their heads to the south end of the valley, where the trail from their house wound up several miles to the nearest town, Fjord. Whenever anyone came to the little Hokage farm, almost surely they would come down from that road. As the house and the barn and the corral were set somewhat low in the valley, the residents of the place could look up that road and see anyone coming long before they got to the house. And so Sakura was able to look up and see Shizune riding Camille speedily down the trail before Shizune could see Sakura.

She scooted herself off the fencepost and into the corral. With the lightning speed that was her talent, Sakura dashed around the horses crowding the other side of the corral, leaped through the gap in the corral fence, and dashed up the hill to meet her aunt. "Shizune! Hi, Shizune!" she cried, waving. Camille raised her white head and whinnied down to Sakura, but Shizune hardly seem to notice her niece standing on the edge of the path.

As she came closer, Shizune pulled gently on Camille's reins and the shaggy white horse trotted around Sakura. Shizune's dark-colored cat ears were practically bristling. "Where's Tsunade, dear?" she said, gasping. "I have something…urgent! Very urgent, to tell her! She needs to see this letter very soon!"

"At the lake, fishing," Sakura replied, pointing. Shizune groaned. The lake was at the northernmost tip of their property, the opposite end of where they were now, nearly a mile away. "For all the…! Well, it's nothing for you to worry about, Sakura. Go on back to the horses, they look frightened." With that, Shizune clicked her tongue and Camille took off down the hill. She sped past the house without even glancing at the other horses, went up the valley and over the hills and too far away for little Sakura to see.

Sakura, being a curious little felis kit who pondered about many things she was too young to understand, naturally did not go back to the horses. Directly. No, she passed them, briefly stopping to pat Foxtrot comfortingly on the nose before running around the corral and following the trail of Camille and Shizune.

Running was perhaps her most favorite thing to do, she'd even tried to race the horses, all of them, on foot and by herself—she'd gotten in trouble, Tsunade insisted she could have been stepped on—and it was an easy feat for a felis kit, especially this one, to run a mile without exhaustion. It was pure bliss to feel the wind on her skin and the grass sweeping the legs of her trousers and the exertion of every quick breath.

She was about to crest the hill that would allow her to see their family's little lake on the horizon, but she stopped. Sakura got down onto her belly, pulling her pink feline ears close to her head, and made sure the blueberry bushes in front of her hid her from view. Feeling secure and quite sure no one could see her, the felis girl peeked over the edge of the hill.

She wasn't surprised to see her mother at the lake—she liked to go there whenever she had free time to take naps by the shore—but she was surprised, however, to see the team of huge stallions and men in fine robes standing near the lakeshore. Near her mother. Immediately she became angered, compelled to go run down and protect her mother from the strangers, but calmed down when she saw said mother talking to one of them, quite calmly.

There were six men and six horses, red carriers, Sakura knew from her oddly extensive knowledge of unusual things. Red carriers were usually chestnut of red roan-colored horses, bred for being able to run long distances while carrying passengers or loads with little rest. The six red carriers down at the lakeshore were all chestnut-colored, excluding the two on the far end who were such a dark red they were nearly black, and they carried strange décor on their necks and legs that suggested only a royal person could ride them.

Five of the men stood back near the horses as the animals stood regally looking out over the lake. The sixth was the one talking to her mother and Shizune. Sakura squinted to see him. He looked very tall, towering even over her mother, and his hair was redder than any plant she could name, and she couldn't quite tell the color of his eyes from this distance, but the shape of them alone looked kind of evil, and the long black coat he wore didn't make him seem much more nice.

Sakura narrowed her eyes; surely the man was evil and she'd have to use her jackrabbit-speed to run over and bring her mother back home quick as lightning and lock all the doors and wage war against the black-cloaked man. She had plenty of weapons prepared under her bed.

Her theory of the man being evil looked more feasible by the second. One minute the man's head is bowed and then he looks Sakura's mother in the eye with an expression the kit had never seen in anyone's eyes before.

She cocked her head slightly, and scooted a little closer, a little more out of the blueberry bushes. Tsunade's eyes were wide and she looked at a loss for words, but then shook her head to gather herself and bowed low. The redheaded man said something, (Sakura had seen his evil mouth move) and her mother moved up again. The man swished a long, red tail, which showed him to be felis, the type without ears.

The other five men—Sakura then saw how muscular and strong and daunting those five looked and felt a little afraid—understood the signal and mounted their horses. Sakura watched in confusion as Shizune mounted Camille again, and the redhead felis offered one of the darker red carrier horses to Tsunade. Sakura's mother looked flushed, bowed several times, and accepted. Then the entire party began cantering at a fast pace towards the women's farm, the redheaded man running near Tsunade.

With a cry and wishing she'd never gotten so close, Sakura bristled her tail in fear and began a speedy dash back to the corral. Her pink tail streaming behind her, the felis kit zipped over the hills, keeping as low and as out of sight as she could, until she was back at the corral after what seemed like a lifetime of running. She jumped over the fence completely, nearly crashing into Renee's leg, and dove behind the big draft horse to the thick shrub in the corner of the corral. The horses seemed to realize that she needed to be hidden, so left her there and stared at the approaching team of stallions cresting the hill.

Sakura turned her pink feline ears to the strange men and horses, peeking out a tiny hole in the branches. She could now see all of them clearly, as they were hardly ten yards from her and her felis vision was near perfect. Tsunade dismounted the foreign, decorated horse and went up to the fence.

Immediately Foxtrot went up to her, his body conveniently hiding Sakura and most of the shrub from Tsunade's view. He nickered and prodded his nose into her face. Maraconn followed suit. Tsunade, rubbing Foxtrot's white muzzle, called out, "Sakura? Sakura, where are you?"

Sakura knew it was not a lucky day for her at all. These terrifying, dark men and their mean-looking horses wanted to see her. After getting a good look at the redhead—whose eyes were dark brown, she noticed—she decided she'd rather not go up to any of them unless she had a good, solid wall to protect her from the weapons she bet they were stealthily hiding. Tsunade then lifted her head and sniffed the air around her twice. Sakura stiffened, hoping the earthy, wheaty smell of the horses and their feed would hide her scent. She smiled and stuck out her tongue happily when that just seemed so. Tsunade appeared not to know she was hiding very near, as she gestured to Shizune, who began circling the house.

"It's not a problem," said one of the men when Shizune completely the circle and apologized for Sakura's absence. "There was a pair of bandits that needed to be taken care of just before we arrived here, ma'am; we probably smell like a bloody mess to her." Now that Sakura got a good whiff of the wind, she found that, yes, they did smell a bit like blood. All the more reason to avoid them.

"I've got her scent. Come over here, please!" called Tsunade from the other side of the house. The redhead turned to one of the other unnamed men and gave him a low command. The man nodded gravely. Then Shizune, the redhead, and most of the other men of the squad followed Tsunade's voice. Two men and two of the horses stayed where they were, standing and staring admiringly at the flowering greenery of the valley around them.

Sakura steeled herself, deciding it was time to be brave. (There were only two of them she needed to take care of, so it would be easier.) She stood up and walked out from behind the shrub, trying to appear as casual and unafraid as she could. One of the men smiled and twitched his felis ear humorously; he'd known she was there all along and was surprised she'd been able to hide herself to deftly. Returning his smile with one of her own, Sakura climbed up on the fence and sat there with her legs crossed and her tail swishing below her.

"Wait…what?" she heard one of the foreign men say from the other side of the house. Smirking, Sakura made herself comfortable and dignified on the fence, and Ruki and Maraconn came over to stand beside her. She could hear them coming around, and one of the redhead's men, a handsome blonde human, came around the corner and saw her. He laughed once, a short and sort of disbelieving sound, and gestured to the others. The felis kit gulped, preparing to face all of the scary-looking people, as they came closer to the fence.

"Sakura! Where were you?" Shizune chided, jogging over and flicking her ear with her finger. Sakura flinched—her ears were sensitive and she preferred them to be untouched—and then said, "I've been sitting up here all along. What do you mean, where was I?" Shizune shook her head and Tsunade came over with the redhead, both silent.

Even when she was sitting on top of the fence, the redhead was still uncomfortably tall, and his eyes only looked a _little _less evil than they had from afar. Hoping there wouldn't be some awkward silence, as soon as the redhead and her mother had stopped coming closer, she asked, "Did you just move here? Because if you did, you should move into the valley. It's better out here than in town. A lot more room."

Tsunade smiled and replied, laughing, "No, silly, he's come from far away to visit us. All the way from Suna." Sakura's pink ears pricked up; Suna was the bustling and colorful city at the foot of the royal castle, the very same castle where the prince of Fell resided. "Are you a noble?"

Trying not to laugh again, Tsunade said, "No, he's the prince. Akasuna no Sasori." Sakura's left ear kinked to the side so that her ears made a sort of L shape, and she looked disbelievingly as Sasori. Before she could ask anything or make any remarks on how un-princely she thought he looked, her mother continued, "He'll be your husband someday; he's dreamed it. He's come to take us away to live in Suna, near the castle."

"Are you really?" she asked, still looking quizzically at him. He nodded, and Sakura decided his eyes had suddenly stopped looking evil. No, they appeared quite…gentle. "I have, little one. You," he moved his tail up near the fence and twined it in hers, "are mine."

Sakura's ears and tail bristled suddenly and Sasori fought to keep back a grunt of surprise. In their first touch, they'd both felt an abrupt shock, like a small lightning bolt from the gods, shooting through them. Everyone twitched or gasped, of made some sort of visible recognition of the change in the air. The _air, _the air itself had sparked. There was no mistake; the green-eyed felis kit was the prince's chosen.

The events after passed in a blur for those who were there to witness them. One of Sasori's soldiers declared that there was another team of horses about an hour behind them, ready to be packed full of any possessions Tsunade, Shizune or Sakura might wish to take with them. Shizune was the only one of the family of women who showed surprise at being expected to leave so suddenly.

Tsunade, though a rural woman at heart, always enjoyed a town or city—where there was a town, there was a bar or restaurant that sold her favorite brand of ale. Sakura was slightly depressed at having to leave her home, her favorite trees and swimming spots and hills, but was mostly made cheerful again by the fact that she could bring all her horses along with her.

Shizune was the only one who really packed. She took it upon herself to lay all their possessions in piles, farming tools, horse tack, cooking pots, personal things. Tsunade stayed outside, talking to Sasori or his five soldiers about life away from a rural place. The horses, Tsunade's and the soldiers' alike, stayed in the corral and grazed themselves happy. Sakura stayed near Sasori, meaning to ask him what that lightning-jolt she'd felt was. Each time she got significantly close to him however, she walked off some yards and looked at the sky or aimlessly picked berries and snacked on them, thinking that Sasori was too tall to speak to unless she was sitting on a fencepost.

The second team of animals arrived about fifteen minutes before they were expected. Shizune panicked, as she had lost two very special antiques her father gave her, and implored one of the soldiers to start a frantic search to find them. There were nine red carrier horses and two huge white draft horses of a breed Sakura couldn't recognize. The draft horses stared at her family's horses, apparently unfamiliar with any of those breeds, and constantly went over to the corral edge to sniff them over the fence, making the packing process much slower.

Sakura took advantage of the extra time in the best way she could think of: hanging around Sasori, and hoping _he _would eventually ask her why she was following and she would have no choice but to ask about the lightning-feeling. That plan turned out to be unneeded, as Tsunade witnessed. When about half of their things were packed onto the eleven newest horses, Tsunade saw that, about fifty feet away, her daughter was again sitting on the corral fence facing the prince of the continent. His back was turned, but she could see her daughter's mouth moving. She pointed to the wide collar of his cloak, and Tsunade could just imagine her giving some completely blunt remark about it.

Sasori shook his head to whatever she'd said, and gestured with his furry red tail to Tsunade. Sakura jumped off the fence and walked slowly over to her mother, looking wary. Tsunade walked up to meet her and curiously observed her daughter's face; it looked absolutely terrified now. "Er…Tsunade," Sakura had always called her mother by name, "how…how old are you?" She flinched after saying this, and looked ready to flee.

"Four hundred and one, hun. Why do you ask?" Sakura looked back at Sasori, who was still standing by the corral and observing them. "He's three hundred thirty-six. I told him he was too old for me, and he laughed and said to get my mother's opinion on this matter." The last part had been a quote, and instead of laughing at her kit's nature she just flicked her blonde felis ear.

Since homes around this rural area of Fell—the Wide Plains, they were called—were miles apart, different families only gathered for holiday celebrations in town, and rarely saw each other otherwise. Thusly, Sakura hardly ever saw other human children or felis kits and had no true playmates but the horses her mother and aunt had. It was no surprise that with such a lack of sociality, and a clever little mind that usually told her to ponder curious things on her own and not ask them aloud, she knew little of felis culture and customs.

There were some things she knew by interactions with her mother and aunt, like tail twining suggesting some kind of bond between two people. (Either that or you grabbed a felis's tail to annoy them or keep them from running away.) A lick on the feline ears was an ultimate sign of affection, and to bite the ears meant the biter was not cool with whatever the victim was or had been doing.

Another such thing from felis culture was that age gaps between individuals meant very little. Tsunade herself had once had a boyfriend much older than her when she was eighty-nine—of course, her appearance was still youthful, as is normal for a felis. The boyfriend had been a felis man who could drink an entire barrel of brandy and still walk in a perfectly straight line. His name was Orochimaru; he had been five hundred and sixty when Tsunade met him, and five hundred sixty-two when he died of black fever.

So, in ten or fifteen years when Sakura grew up, when Sasori would be in his three hundred forties, a bond between them would be perfectly normal. Sakura, however, didn't like the prospect of having a three hundred and thirty-six year old stranger for a mate. In fact, she'd planned to have no mate at all and adopt her children.

Poor Sasori was left alone for nearly an hour while Sakura tried to convince her mother that _yes, _the prince of Fell was much too old for her. This argument carried into the rest of the day, even when everything but the house and the large furniture was packed. Sakura was listing her forty-third point on the list of reasons why Sasori should find a different girl when she and Tsunade let all the horses out of the corral and began putting their tack on. Tsunade was just about to help Sakura mount Foxtrot when the subject of argument himself came over.

Tsunade froze immediately—she couldn't help but feel saying the wrong thing in front of him would be one of the worst mistakes of her life—and tried not to stutter in front of him, despite her seniority. "Majesty! Is there anything I can get you?"

"Yes," and both mother and daughter noticed again what a _lovely _voice he had, "If possible, I would like to ride with Sakura."

"Th—"

"That is perfectly fine!" Sakura interrupted her mother. She pointed her pink ears up towards him. "I have lots of things to tell _you._" Tsunade laughed nervously, and, unnaturally quick, she fetched a blanket and larger saddle from the barn and tied them to Foxtrot's back. "Foxtrot here is the smoothest runner of our group. You'll have no problem riding him…ah, this buckle is…there! Ready for you." She bowed exaggeratedly, and by the time she moved up again he'd already mounted. Foxtrot rolled his black eyes nervously, but when Tsunade lifted Sakura up to sit in front of Sasori, the trotter horse calmed down.

Tsunade thought it best to leave them alone for a few minutes while she got the tack on Maraconn, the steed she planned to ride the entire trip. When she returned to the group of soldiers and horses five minutes later, leading the mountain pony by a rope connected to her bridle, she found the prince and her daughter and her horse standing to the side of the entire party and conversing. Both looked cheerful. Sakura had Foxtrot's reins in one hand, just near Sasori's, and held said prince's tail in the other. Both were smiling.

Tsunade, grinning and shaking her head, mounted Maraconn, who did not look pleased at all to see her fellow steed friend carrying around a stranger. Tsunade shifted the reins and led the mountain pony over to Foxtrot. She passed Shizune, who looked equally perturbed at her niece and the prince appearing so friendly.

"You two seem cheery." the blonde commented as she rode up close on Maraconn. Sasori had his left hand on Sakura's head, between her pink feline ears. "Your child is very bright, Miss Tsunade." Tsunade tried to keep her smile as dignified and non-giddy as possible. A difficult task. "I purred the tune of 'Heartfelt,' and she recognized it with ease."

"Heartfelt", you must understand, was a very famous piece of classical music in this world of humans and felis, nearly equivalent to the works of Beethoven in ours. And it was not often you saw a seven-year-old listening to or understanding or even being interested in the works of Beethoven or any such things like them. So Tsunade was quite surprised.

"Wh—When did you hear that?" the blonde mother asked. "I followed you into Fjord once." Sakura replied back slyly, quite aware that she couldn't really be punished for such a thing in front of the prince. "It was three months ago. You went to get some more of that wine you like so much, and I hadn't been to Fjord in so long I thought I should see if there was anything new there. And a man by the post building had a violin, and he was playing it. He was very good."

"Since when are you interested in music?" Tsunade asked, and Maraconn nickered as though she, too, wondered. "Mmm…birth." the felis kit said, shrugging. Before her mother could ask anything else, the kit said, "You never asked me about it, so I never told you. You should've asked."

"And in the last five minutes she's made me aware of nine little adventures I don't think she would want you to know of." Sakura, under the impression that the prince would protect her from her mother's wrath, didn't seem unnerved by her secret adventures being unveiled.

Shizune came trotting over on Camille, the white shagya horse. "The, uh, the blonde felis told me to come and tell you we need to leave soon." she said, obviously slightly uncomfortable with speaking to such royalty. "Deidara's his name, I think. He says it's going to rain tonight, or tomorrow morning, and if we hurry we can be in Suna by morning. Is he serious, though? Our horses can go long distances if we need them to, but the journey to Suna has to be two…days' worth, at least, doesn't…it?"

Her words had trailed off due to the sight of Akasuna no Sasori and her young niece relaxed and together on the same steed. Her hand loosely holding his tail at her side, and his own hand—black-painted claws, Shizune noticed—comfortably on her head between her feline ears was so damned _sweet _she could hardly stand it. The fact that Sakura disliked even her mother to touch her ears only made it better. How she could have warmed up to him in five minutes when she'd spent the last two hours listing reasons to be away from him was beyond poor Shizune.

"Then now would be the perfect time to leave, wouldn't it?" the prince remarked. "You have a few minutes to say your goodbyes to this place. Visiting it won't be impossible; this won't be your last time seeing it."

When he directed Foxtrot away and towards his team of junk-packed stallions, Shizune and Tsunade were left alone to gaze about themselves for a few minutes. Shizune looked truly sad; before her older sister and her two horses had moved here, she'd lived here alone and mostly content for over a century.

She thanked the prince that he was allowing them to come and visit the farm sometime. She would miss directing Ruki and Renee over the fields to plow for the seeds of the yearly vegetables the family loved so much. She'd miss the barn where the horses slept and the house and the lush valley where she'd spent so much of her life. She would miss it, and hopefully enjoy her new home just as much.

Shizune wondered why her sister appeared so much more happy to leave. Tsunade had lived here with her sister in this valley for about two decades, and she knew that her blonde sister loved it, but she could enjoy another living quarters just as much as long as she had her family with her. This she had, and so she looked to the highly sudden change with confidence.

The kit of this tale, Sakura, shared much of her mother's thoughts. She knew she should feel sadness for leaving the places she knew and loved so well, but couldn't make herself feel that much sorrow. She, too, looked forward to a new place with her mother and aunt. Besides, as long as she could run and romp around freely, she doubted she'd have a problem with their new home. So, when Foxtrot carried she and Sasori over the hill that marked the northern edge of their property, she leaned outward and plucked a white orchid flower from its tall branches. Looking around with her large, bright eyes she found the perfect spot: a moss-covered rock that Foxtrot would pass in seconds.

Most of the mounted party was behind them, her mother and aunt included, so most would see her do this next act. Leaning over again, she dropped the orchid flower on the rock, as a good-bye to everything she was leaving here, and then turned around—using Sasori's tail for leverage—and waved to her old home. The valley said its goodbye in the only way it could: a breeze blew by, and the wind kissed Sakura's face.

She was smiling as the group picked up speed. All the horses, even the draft, were cantering now, not trotting but not galloping or running, and within minutes they'd long left the lonely little valley miles behind. Sakura wondered if Sasori was purring or if the smoothness of Foxtrot's gait was just getting to her. She decided it was both that put her to sleep, but it was most definitely Sasori's warm, red tail that kept her from falling off the horse.

666

May 7th, 7:02 AM

666

Not many of Sakura's dreams made sense. She dreamed rather crazy things, unrelated to anything she knew. This dream was just so. It had shown two one-eyed dogs trying to find their way out of of a gigantic mansion that was dangerously and ridiculously overflowing with candy. The second dog eventually couldn't resist the treats all around and had stayed in the mansion forever, gorging itself. The first one, finding temptation too great, jumped out a window, landed on a trampoline and bounced into a pile of hay, from which it ran triumphantly into the sunset.

Sakura woke up feeling hungry for some peppermint candies and wondering if she'd slept for a month, just the way she felt she had. She kept her eyes closed and her ears, all four of them, open, to see if maybe she could _hear _where she was, exactly, instead of see. She could feel that yes, she was still on a horse, yes, Sasori's tail was still gently wrapped over her shoulders, so wherever the city of Suna was, they hadn't gotten there yet.

"Is that it, Majesty?"

"It is."

"Beautiful!I could—! I could—! Tsunade, just _look _at it! Do you see that corral? That cottage? They're enormous, and the flowers on the porch, gods above, is that a snapdragon bush? "

"Don't give yourself a stroke. You're agitating Camille, and you'll wake my kit."

"Is she all right like that, Tsunade? I mean, almost two days and she hasn't woken up once, mm."

"Ah, you're a sweet man, Deidara. She's slept much longer than this; it's perfectly fine."

Wondering what the adults would say to find her awake through that whole conversation, Sakura blinked open her eyes and was about to say, "I can hear you, you know," when the sight before her took her breath away.

If the rolling hills and tall grasses of the valley at home had been beautiful, this place was nothing short of magnificent. Violet mountains lined the horizon, and at their bottoms Sakura could just see thin, dark lines, forests at the feet of the mountains. From those forest lines all the way to Sakura, and to the opposite mountainous horizon, stretched a wide, hilly plain dotted with blossoms and flowering trees. Perhaps a hundred yards away, was a fine two-story cottage sitting next to a gigantic corral and a little red barn. Nearly out of sight at the far forest line was another cottage with a smoking chimney, their nearest neighbors.

This scene wasn't including the castle, of course. And we must include the castle and its surrounding city, Suna. The mounted party was just trotting off the beaten path towards the cottage, but said beaten path led down the valley towards a stone wall surrounding a stone city that could just barely be seen through the open gates. Rising high above this city were three black marble towers, dotted with windows and flags and an overpowering air of royalty that reached the group even out here, beyond the wall.

(AN: The physical outlook is somewhat similar to the fields around Hyrule Castle in Twilight Princess, I daresay…)

No longer giving a rip as to whether or not the adults knew if she was awake, Sakura was suddenly stretching as high or as far as she could to see over Foxtrot's chestnut-colored head. Her pink feline ears pointed backward towards her mother when said blonde called from behind, "Sakura, that's going to be our house! _That _awesome thing there!"

"I'm getting a closer look!" she cried. And without so much as turning around to acknowledge Sasori, who still held her close, she gripped Foxtrot's reins and slapped down. The horse, obeying the command of his more favored rider, neighed loudly and blasted into a high-speed gallop, completely surprising Foxtrot's other rider. Sakura had no idea what a fool she'd just made of Fell's prince.

They were about halfway to the cottage, and Sakura was laughing quietly at how the soft ground made Foxtrot's smooth gait even smoother, when she felt Sasori wrap an arm around her. Then, without any warning whatsoever, he jumped off the horse and several meters into the air. The felis kit was much too startled to even utter a shocked cry as she felt herself hang in midair and watched her horse go on running.

She stiffened fearfully when they fell towards the ground, but found Sasori had great balance, and he landed standing up in the grass soundlessly and easily. Sakura was still much too startled to do more than dig her little feline claws into his arm.

Foxtrot came cantering over the them, nickering in horse language something along the lines of, "What the hell was that?" and Tsunade came running over. The blonde felis woman jumped not-very-nimbly off Maraconn and Sasori passed the kit to her, who was set down on the ground immediately. "What were you _doing, _setting Foxtrot into a gallop so suddenly! You could have injured yourself _and _his Majesty! I think you owe him an…apology…"

But Sakura was already bowing and apologizing faster than words could allow her. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I know I made you look really stupid like you were gonna fall off or something and falling off horses isn't a prince-ish thing to do and it could have broken your spine and it would be very nice if you didn't chop me up into little pieces and eat 'em!"

While Tsunade was blinking in surprise and Shizune came over to do quite the same thing, Sasori's shoulder shook with silent laughter. "I would never have fallen off," he assured. "And even if I somehow had, I wouldn't be hurt by such a thing. It would take much more than a fall to injure me." Sakura was still apologizing at a pace so fast her words could hardly be made out.

Eyes aglitter with an amusement and gentleness most of his soldiers had never seen before, he crouched down and pinched the kit's feline ear to get her attention. She stopped immediately, rubbing the sensitive thing and now glaring not quite apologetically into his brown eyes. "And are _you _hurt, little one?" he asked.

"No." she muttered. "I ride Foxtrot fast like that all the time. I never fall off."

The way his tail flicked her hand was something Sakura vaguely recognized as affectionate, but she brushed it off. Instead, avoiding that fond gaze he was giving her, she looked just past him and saw the wall circling the city of Suna and the black castle above it. "Are…are we going to go there, too?"

Sasori's five men turned to look as though they forgot the royal city was right behind them, along with Shizune and Tsunade. "You don't want to look at our new house, Sakura?" Shizune asked. "There's probably an attic room that you can use for your star-watching. You don't even want to see that?"

The pink-haired youngling was slightly angered that her aunt would think that she _wouldn't _want to do something related to star-watching, a favorite activity of hers. So she turned to Shizune and said indignantly, "Yeah, I do! But…maybe more near nighttime when stars are actually there…and that place looks kind of…fun to…" Well it was only reasonable. Where would a child want to be—a lively, scenic, unique city and a _castle, _or a cottage in the middle of a charming but boring field?

"At least unpack your carved birds." Tsunade insisted, going over to Deidara, whose steed's knapsacks contained said birds. "I'm sure the blackbird would love to be on the windowsill up in that attic room there. What's his name again? Riddle?" Now embarrassed that her love for creative naming was revealed in front of the prince, Sakura looked away and took the little wooden, painted blackbird as her mother handed it to her.

"I don't see a reason why she can't see Suna," Sasori murmured. The seven-year-old had been about to open the red mahogany door to the cottage, but her ears pricked and she stopped with her hand an inch from the knob. "It only makes sense that a trip through the city would tire her out, take away the energy one receives when sleeping for two days. Perhaps she'll be calm enough to unpack then?"

Sakura would not know if this was or was not an unspoken command from Sasori to Tsunade and Shizune, something like, "You, the mother, may tell her she can't go, but I rule this continent and I say that this kit, _my _kit, shall be allowed." Then again, you would not know either. Even I, the teller of this tale, wouldn't know, but we're going to have to assume so because at the moment we can't think of any other option.

The kit in question set the blackbird carving gently on the snapdragon-filled flowerbox on the windowsill. She made sure it was safe in a little ditch of soil, safe from being blown off the flowerbox by the wind or knocked off by a real bird before turning around and saying, "I think so, too! If I didn't have so much energy, I'd unpack just like you tell me to, Tsunade! When I see the city and when I'm all burned out I won't want to run around anymore and I'll unpack everything."

Her daughter's innocent, green gaze completely full of hope was just too much, no matter what the prince of Fell said on her behalf. "Fine…but please be back as soon as possible. If you can, I mean!"

Sasori nodded, understanding the mother's want to keep her child near, not that he could remember much of his own mother acting the same way, but he did try. When she came up to him, eyes wide and excited, she asked, "When, when?"

"Now, if you'd like."

"I like now very much, thank you."

The smiles from both of them were genuine and warm. It wasn't all that surprising when he flicked his tongue over her little feline ear before standing up. It _was _surprising that Sakura accepted it without flinching back, for licking a felis's ear was an ultimate sign of affection and no one who'd spent the last few days watching them doubted that there was familiar affection between the two.

They went off on foot downhill, towards the walled city and the castle. Sasori's tail was wound protectively into Sakura's, and even Tsunade and Shizune, who'd been mildly irritated that he'd flashed the "I am the prince, my word is law" card to be able to give the kit what she wanted, found themselves nearly in tears at the sight of them.

Because it was so fucking cute.

666

DONE! Yeah. About six compiled hours, all in one weekend to get 17 pages. Slow for me and a smidge shorter than normal. My first comment is don't get all upset because Sasori's three hundred thirty-six and Sakura's like seven. Age gaps were explained within the story, above it, and even in the manga/anime where he's already about thrice her age and the fans seem okay with that and their ages is actually going to end up being a funny little plot device next chapter so if it worries you just lay off it. Oh, and don't get worked up over Sasori's OOC-ness, either. I warned you. Twice. You're the one that read it.

Mostly fluff in this chapter and the foundation of the plot. Next chapter will be more humorous, fun and adventurous with some fluff still in there, and more romance the third chapter. I have most of this planned out in my head. Except the ending and fancy details. I'll probably just wing those.

I stayed up till 11:00 on a Sunday night to get this done, so you'd better appreciate it.

Ta…Storm


	2. II

It took me a lot longer than I expected to start this second chapter. Not because I didn't have the time; you guys wouldn't believe how much free time I have every day. It's because I still have it in my head that this story is downright strange (you do, too, I assume) and writing it makes me shake my head at the OOC-ness and weirdness of the plot and everything. I also feel Sasori is incomplete unless he's got some form of puppetry with him. So I'll give it back to him in this chapter, somehow.

Cheer and rejoice, as I'm skipping reviews for this story, as in I won't be typing everyone's name and replying to whatever they said. I have to get to writing before I lose my inspiration and get the "ehhh why am I writing this bizarre stuff" feeling again. Well, I warned you of OOC-ness before, so be prepared to see Sasori's character slaughtered good and bloody. Good day.

666

May 7th, 10:23 AM

666

A parent usually doesn't feel too cheery when their child utters their first curse word, even if that child is innocently asking the meaning of the word without using it as a curse. The case was the same for felis parents. And Tsunade, Sakura's mother, was thankfully not here to bear witness to young Sakura's first curse.

You see, when an adventurous and curious felis kit likes Sakura sees her first colorful, populated and busy city, especially one like Suna, said kit may either go crazy trying to see everything at once or be struck dumb and speechless, only offering scant remarks to the things they see. Sakura was stuck in between these, despite the admiring remarks and looks that were thrown in the prince's direction every five minutes. It wasn't that rare in Suna to see the prince of the country walking about for no real reason. It was a practice of calming. When one has a hundred political and nationwide issues on one's shoulders per day, a walk around the block can clear one's head and help one think.

Sometimes she would dodge behind Fell's handsome prince to get a close-up eyewitness of some vendor or shop or even a person on the street, or one of the intricate pastel paintings that livened the stone wall surrounding the city. Sometimes though, she would also catch sight of some magnificent church or mansion (for it was common for small cottages and enormous aristocratic mansions to sit next to each other and be neighbors) and stare in silent awe.

The city of Suna was little, though, compared to the castle that sat snugly in its middle. If the three black, soaring towers tipped with red flags weren't enough for one's eyes, the central structure between them added to the wonder. In the middle of the three towers was a low, cylindrical structure, large enough to contain dozens if not hundreds of rooms, possibly more in dungeons below. Then again, the interior of the place was what I'm really trying to get to here, so let's get on to the point, yes?

Sasori had saved his castle's interior for last, knowing well just how visitors, and the little kit, would react to the sheer magnificence and brilliance. It was much lacking in the stereotypical paintings of lords and ladies gone past, these being replaced with pastel and watercolor paintings and threadings hung on the walls, portraying the most beautiful and rare scenes of nature and battle and dreams and anything divine and perfect an artist could create.

So, our lovely prince had just begun showing his kit to the inside of the castle as we focus in on a certain point of our tale. He had just opened the set of steel double doors, metallic structures taller than any man, and the first thing Sakura set her wild eyes upon was the meeting room. The meeting room, as one might guess, was where aristocrats and politicians gathered for elegant balls and dances, and was almost always decorated for that occasion.

What with a room with a ceiling practically soaring to the sky and walls draped in the finest of artistry and the room itself seeming to breathe the word "sophisticated," it was almost no surprise what seven-year-old Sakura said in response.

"Oh my GOD, it's huge!"

Thankfully the echo of the huge room wasn't quite enough for Tsunade and Shizune to hear a mile or so outside the city walls in their cottage.

Without thinking he purred and flicked his tail over her pink felis ear—he'd noticed at her old farm home in the Wide Plains, she didn't even let her mother touch her feline ears, and took pleasure in knowing that she allowed him. Sakura was careful to walk only on the red silken rug running straight through the room. She was wearing the same scuffed black boots she always wore, the same boots that had taken her all over the rolling hills in her old home and stepped in mud and lakewater and probably squished a good number of bugs, as well. Sakura had never blushed before in her life, but found herself dangerously close when she realized that she was walking in a prince's castle with dirty boots of all things to wear.

Together, with occasional, somewhat strange conversation concerning classical music and the importance of violins, Sasori gave the felis kit a grand tour of his home, from the kitchens—he was delighted to let her taste the red velvet cake—to the library—Sakura tried to subtly ask if she might borrow a copy of _War and Peace, _at which Sasori chuckled—to the personal chamber of Deidara, his self-appointed-and-named "slave-slash-messenger" and best friend.

Sakura asked if Deidara thought it would be allright if the prince intruded on his room when he was absent, but Sasori's reply was that Deidara couldn't do anything about it anyway. Sakura, intellectual child as she was, could hear the brotherly tone of his voice and understood that if Deidara got mad about it he would easily forgive Sasori. She didn't notice the look of contemplation the prince watched her with when her back was turned; he was still getting used to the fact that the kit had an intellect that was several years beyond his age.

Within three or so hours they were walking back through Suna, tails loosely twined and, what with spending the last two days or so near each other, their scents slightly mixed. The kit, having no knowledge nor interest in the subject, would not understand that this was an obvious sign of bonding (among other things) in the felis species.

The conversation of classical music continued almost all throughout those three hours: "But 'Ye Sorrowful Sea' sounds just like ocean waves to me. Yehh, I never saw the ocean before, but the song goes up and down all the time, speeding up, slowing down at weird times you can never guess, so, yeah."

"No, no, it's meant to symbolize a human's life. Birth is content, calm; childhood and adolescence are much more upbeat times in one's life. The rhythm must follow this—"

"But a person's life isn't always as crazy as an ocean wave, so the rhythm shouldn't be, either! That's like an insult to the calmer humans who actually know what they're gonna do in life!"

It went on up until they had crossed the mile or so distance across the green fields to Sakura's home. When they were twenty yards or so from the house Sakura felt a memory rush back to her of the carved blackbird she'd left sitting in the windowsill flowerbox by the door, and, acting upon impulse as she often did, tried to dash towards it and get the carved bird. She squeaked when she found the prince wouldn't unwind his tail from hers.

However bright a seven-year-old is, they can't possibly understand the complexities and various forms of love other than the type received from their parents, and a kit can't possibly understand the feeling their future life partner would have for them when said life partner is much older and wiser. It only made sense that the morose look in the prince's eyes confused Sakura. She confronted this unknown thing like she did most other unknown things: staring it down, determined and hoping to win, until Sasori's tail did loosen enough for her to leave.

"Stay here!" she called when she opened the door and shut it again. In the twenty seconds or so she was in the cottage, Sasori's eyes were caught by the movement in the corral near the west side of the cottage. He spotted the two brown draft horses Renee and Ruki bobbing their heads in his direction, as though saying hello.

Then the square window at the top of the house, likely the attic, opened up and Sakura's pink-kitten-eared head popped out. "Catch this!" In her left hand she held an old piece of rolled-up paper, tied with a fine piece of green string, and she threw this ancient document out the window quite carelessly. There was a flash of anxiousness in the prince's chocolate eyes but he caught the paper single-handed and without any trouble.

Sakura leaned precariously out the window and said, "I found that in my room last year, under the floorboards. Tsunade thinks the people who lived here before left it behind. Untie it." Sasori did so with an effortless flick of his claw, unrolled the paper, and saw a faded ink drawing of a Versace, an ancient type of violin, known for the fact that even in the poorest conditions it always had a fine polished sheen.

"I want to be a musician when I'm older. Probably a violin-player." Sakura said quietly, just loud enough for another felis to hear. "And also, Tsunade said there's something wrong with the picture, and she wanted to figure out what someday. So I kept that picture." Sasori had his head cocked and was staring intently at the drawing. A flick of his long tail was the only warning Sakura got; in the next second the redheaded felis was balancing on her windowsill, still looking at the picture. She yelped and staggered back, nearly knocking over the stack of little brown boxes at her feet.

He turned the picture over and let one leg down over the windowsill, so that he was more or less sitting down. "Do you know what this is?"

"A Versace." He was surprised at the perfection and precision with which the kit said that name, as though she'd known the word from birth. Sasori gestured with two fingers for her to come closer, and put a hand on her shoulder when she did. He pointed out the middle of the instrument, where it curved inward like an hourglass.

"The waist is much too thin. Anyone carrying this instrument could have snapped it in half. A Versace is not supposed to be made this way. Yet there was _one _made in this way, made for a person who knew how to carry it gently enough not to break it. This was my grandmother's."

The first thing the kit comprehended was that there were two things in existence older than the prince of Fell: his grandmother, and the grandmother's violin. But she knew better than the say this out loud. "This is a drawing of your grandmother's violin?"

"It is."

"Then take it back to your castle or something. Shouldn't you frame it? Or give it to your grandmother?"

"I'm almost certain she's dead. She left Suna centuries ago, and boarded a ship to Noriker. It sank. Some passengers survived, some didn't."

Not really knowing what else to do, and forgetting to use her tail, she gently grasped Sasori's red feline tail in her hand and squeezed it. The tail curled around her wrist fondly. "Your parents, then?"

"Fell has no king or queen. I was perhaps five years older than you when they died of black fever." Sakura's tail twitched uncomfortably; her mind immediately drew up a story she'd heard many times before, of a felis man her mother had known, Orochimaru, who had been hailed as one of the strongest and most intelligent of his species, and had died of black fever within a week of being infected. He'd become as frail, sick and feeble as any infant before dying.

A seven-year-old speaking of death, fatal fever and lack of family probably has little idea of how to be gentle or subtle in her words. "I know someone who died of that, too," was the best she could come up with. "Tsunade says a lot of people do." Sakura's pink feline ears perked and pointed straight up. She glanced quickly, bird-like, out the window. Her superb sense of hearing was something her mother and aunt had neglected to tell the prince, to it mildly surprised him that the kit heard the oncoming horse before he did.

They looked out the open attic window and saw a blonde man in a blue tunic approaching the Hokage family's cottage on a fine white stallion. His hair was done up in the most ridiculous of styles. The prince and the kit could barely tell that he was a felis. Like Sasori, he was one of the rare fellows who was born with the feline tail but no feline ears on his head.

The man jumped, yes jumped, off his horse and waved up at them. "Hey, Mister Majesty! They need you at the castle!" Sasori made an irritated noise in his chest, growling with an annoyance that darkened his eyes. "Deidara…" They lightened when he looked at Sakura again, who was looking down at Deidara, puzzled. "Was he with us when Tsunade, me n' Shizune came here?" He grunted a confirmation. "And did he talk a lot?"

The blonde felis on the hill was still waving and babbling. "He can't make himself shut up. He as talking at least half the journey to Suna. Why?"

"I had a dream on the way here, about these two dogs trying to get out of a big mansion. They kept hearing a voice behind them saying stupid stuff like 'lacking in political prowess' and 'fireworks next Wednesday for me.' I think he was talking so loud that I heard him in my dream."

"I'm sorry. I would enjoy muting him myself but…some others wouldn't appreciate it. Stupid and loud as he is, Deidara is well liked in this city."

"Why?"

"God only knows."

"What if god doesn't know?"

"_Majesty would you come down here now? It's been like five minutes!" _

Sakura's lips curved up in a smile at the eccentric man below but her ears curled down in distaste of the loud sound. "If he's here for the reason I believe he is, I won't be able to come back for several days. Will you be unpacked by then?" But by the end of his sentence the pink-haired kit was using her little claws to open a box marked "birds" in crude, cursive handwriting. "You need to teach people some 'political prowess or something, yeah?" she kit asked, pulling little carved creatures out of the box. "Yes. Stupid politicians often come to me to learn."

"Do you have a prowess that you can give them?"

The prince chuckled and ran his tail over hers. Sakura appeared not to notice and was arranging the wooden birds in a long line. "I do, Sakura, and others think it fantastic. I'll be lucky to see you again in less than ten days." Sakura's mouth twitched uncomfortably. Ten days, to her especially, was a long time, but she grinned again when she realized she'd have nearly all that time to explore the city and the surrounding hilly country, find out special, secret routes like she'd had in her old home.

Hoping he hadn't picked up her devious plans, she said, "Well that gives me a whole lot of time to learn to stars here. I knew the names of the ones in my old home. I could connect the dots. And in the daytime the horses need to learn the country around here. I can help 'em with that."

She'd cleverly thought of all these things off the top of her young head, and knew her voice could easily disguise her true intent with innocence. She also was clever to hide the slight fear she was feeling. After all, if she discovered some secret way into the castle or upset some royal official, Sakura knew how liable she'd be to be given a royally horrible and nightmarish punishment from the prince himself.

"MISTER FREAKING MAJESTY WOULD YOU PUH-LEAZE—"

"Shut up, I'm coming!"

Sakura's eyes brightened jovially and she giggled, "I think I do like him." Sasori sighed and touched the kit's furry, pink ears once more before bidding her farewell and jumping out the window to meet his "slave-slash-messenger."

Her back had been turned on him since the prince had asked if she'd be unpacked by the next time she saw him. Now Sakura rushed to the window and stared with unnaturally keen eyes as the blonde felis mounted his stallion and the prince walked along with him back towards Suna and the castle. Sakura thought she heard Tsunade and Shizune downstairs conversing about the strange blonde felis who was now walking the prince home. Shizune was walking up the stairs to the second floor, and then up to the attic, to see if Sakura was there.

While she still had a few moments to herself, the kit curled her tail distastefully and glared at the retreating royalty. Sure, he was wise and knew a great deal about music and most everything she wanted to know, and sure his purr was nearly as soothing as her mothers, but the way he constantly touched her felis ears was a little annoying.

One of her prime goals of living in this new, exciting place was to make sure the prince knew he was not allowed to touch her ears.

Another was to get some more of that red velvet cake she'd tasted in the castle kitchens.

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May 7th, 12:04 PM

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Sakura's goal of keeping Sasori's hands and felis tail away from her ears slowly became less and less of a priority as the day went on. She unpacked her three boxes' worth of toys and knickknacks and set up her room in the attic, where she could stargaze in comfort all the time.

Shizune and Tsunade helped her connect the pieces of her bed and put the mattress on it, and within two hours or so Sakura's room was complete, strangely organized for a seven-year-old and sporting some strange things a seven-year-old usually wouldn't have: an ancient mammoth tusk, a painting of Evrae, the mythical, god-like horse, a book of the sonnets and ballads of Noriker, and a pair of reed whistles that looked bloodstained. Sakura was a curious child in all ways and she knew it well.

The first thing she did after packing was have a lunch smoked salmon that seemed too big for a child, much less any one single person, and then offered to take her mother and aunt into Suna and show them around, because she felt she knew the city inside and out already. Tsunade and Shizune, only halfway done with their own unpacking, agreed it would be a fine break and followed the child down the path through the hills to the city. All the while she hummed and purred a piece of music celebrating Konik's nationality: "Great Red and White." This was a song Sasori had taught her that morning.

The gates to Suna were open till an hour after sunset on an average day and everyone was allowed in and out whenever they pleased. Shizune soon had to hold her older sister back when she was playing roulette in a modest café, making the place look quite dirty what with the way she swore at losing two-thirds of the time. While her mother and aunt were busy with each other Sakura snuck deviously away and jogged a few streets away until she was sure she was far enough away.

This street was mostly lined with homes, ranging from little cottages to modest houses and insanely large mansions (in Suna large and teeny houses sat next to each other and no one commented on the weirdness of it). As though on cue, a leathery, bouncing gold ball hit her in the back of her knees.

She was much too tough for something like this to knock her over and too proud to let anyone know it had startled the living daylights out of her. She picked up the ball and looked up to see two children coming towards her. Their legs were covered in scrapes and their eyes were bright with playfulness. Sakura liked these two already.

The first of the children looked oldest. He was a normal felis kit, with ears and tail both, of average height, meaning taller than little Sakura. He was a brunette and his big felis ears and twitching tail were just as brown. Strange fang-shaped tattoos were stuck onto his cheeks and his eyes were like a wildcat's. The boy was wearing a thin, blue jacket.

The second was shorter, nearly Sakura's height, and was also a felis. Her ears and tail were just the same shade of violet as her hair, and her eyes were as pale as her skin. The cream-colored sundress she wore only seemed to make her more timid than she naturally looked. This purple-haired kit spoke first. "Hey, uhm…do you want to play with us?"

Sakura blinked, and quickly assessed herself. In plain white shorts and a solid blue shirt that had taken her through many thorny bushes and saved her from getting many scratches on her arms, she was well dressed for play. "Yeah, yeah! Where you just playing catch?"

"Not really. We're trying to kick the ball past Ino. She's over there." The brunette boy pointed at a third child, standing in between the two fence-posts that made the opening into a cottage's garden. Her hair was short and whitish-blonde, and was a half-breed. She had felis ears but no tail, but it was not this that gave it away, but mere instinct that told Sakura. The pale blue riding habit she wore—a garment something like a dress—was not at all suited for play, but she looked happy enough to be there and participating even though the hem of the dress was dirty and dusty.

"Did you move here? I lived here all my life but I never saw you before." The brunette boy scratched his chin. Sakura bounced the ball on the ground and while doing so said, "Yeah, I came here just this morning. I'm Sakura."

The boy smiled. "Sakura, huh? You're pretty." Sakura smiled appreciatively; it was different when someone besides her family said it, and she'd heard it said often.

"My father says not many people move here. He doesn't know why." The kit with the purple hair said, and flinched when the other two turned their eyes on her. "Oh, uh, uhh, I'm Hinata. So how come you came?"

Sakura twitched her tail carelessly, still bouncing the ball. "The prince said he had a dream I'd be his mate when I'm older. So I had to move here from the Wide Plains. My mother and aunt came too." The two kits' eyes went wide, and the third, Ino, started walking over from the cottage where she stood.

"The prince? Akasuna no Sasori?" the boy said incredulously.

"Yeah, is there another one?"

"No, he's—you're like famous! He dreamed about you years ago! On the night you were born he dreamed about you, that's what my sister told me. Man, you're gonna live the _life!_" Sakura's bright green eyes darkened. "I don't want to live the life! I want to live a normal life. I live in a cottage outside the wall with my mother and aunt and horses and I got my own room in the attic, and I like it! I want to live _that _life, not _the _life."

The blonde half-breed felis, Ino, gasped and put her hands up to her mouth. "Why wouldn't you want to live in the castle?!" she gawped. "That's the best place in Fell! The whole world, probably! And you're gonna be queen one day!"

Now it was Sakura's turn to gawp. "Queen? Wh—Huh?" Hinata looked away nervously and said, "Yes, you're his chosen. You're gonna marry him when you're old enough. That's the rule."

"I have to marry him _and _be his mate?!"

"Yeah, it's…kind of a two-for-one."

"Yeah, for every felis, not just princes, ya know. My momma married my papa and she's his mate, too."

Sakura's eyes brightened with a great calculation the other children gazed at curiously. "Then I have to make him change his mind. I meant to do it before, I forgot. How much time do I have before I marry him?" Hinata looked about to answer when Ino said, "Uh…I think whenever he wants you to, but I remember my momma telling me a story once, it was just like this…. Yeah, it's an old story about a felis prince who has his dream about the girl who's gonna be his mate, and the day she turned sixteen she married him. Or maybe it was seventeen."

In the few minutes she'd known these children, Sakura's mind decided, in its usual perfect and sure way, that they were trustworthy, friendly and mostly reliable. The blonde one was questionable, but she liked them all already. So she said, "Would you guys help me change his mind? Find another girl for Sasori?"

Hinata and Ino were dumbstruck that the new girl would so easily call the prince by name. But the boy answered easily, "Well, depends what we'd have to do…would it be dangerous?"

The pink-haired kit's tail curled delightedly. She liked this brunette felis quite a bit. "Heck yes, it would! I don't think I'd do it if it wasn't dangerous. I did dangerous things all the time in my old home. Sees, there's this town a couple miles from my old home, and it's called Fjord. But once I took my horse Foxtrot and rode him all the way to the _next _town! Perchin! That's like ten miles away from my old home and it's so full of Percheron draft horses you wouldn't believe it. And Tsunade and Shizune—my mother and my aunt—they never found out! I told Sasori, though."

"That is AWESOME!" The boy screeched, causing a trio of human women who were walking by the stare at the kit oddly. "I like you, Sakura! Tell me another dangerous thing you did! You did do more dangerous things, right?"

"Lots! Tons! Hey, what's your name?"

"I didn't tell you?"

"Nope."

"Oh…well, Kiba. And this is Hinata and Ino. Ino and me live on this street. Hinata lives on the other side of town. So, do you want to play now? I think better when I'm on my feet doing stuff."

"Yeah, me too. Can I guard the goal with you, Ino?"

"Uh-huh, I need the help really bad. Hinata's being really evil today! She keeps kicking the ball at my feet and making me trip and I got my riding habit all dirty! It's not my best one, so I'm allowed to play in it, but I _hate _the dirt and the dust on it anyway!"

And so during the game which was something like soccer, in which Hinata and Kiba tried to kick the silver bouncy ball past Ino and Sakura who guarded the gate to Ino's garden, the children learned about each other. Within five minutes or so, and after her mentions of Noriker sonnets and types of wild tapirs and names of star constellations, the three Suna children learned that 

Sakura was intelligent beyond her years. Sakura took great joy in knowing that she wasn't the youngest of the group: though they were all coincidentally near seven or eight years old, Hinata was younger than Sakura by about nine months. Ino was oldest though her loud and whiny behavior didn't show it, and Kiba second-oldest.

They found it easy to talk and kick the silver ball and block it and retrieve it when it went too far all at the same time, and did so for nearly an hour. When Ino tripped over the ball and then said that her parents were florists, and that they owned a pet parrot named Luigi, Sakura laughed so hard at the ridiculous name that she didn't care when Kiba's kick sent her flat onto her back.

Hinata and Kiba fell into laughter with her, rolling on the ground, and only Ino stood, with her delicate hands on her hips and commanding the "youngsters" to tell her just what was so funny. At this point Shizune came running down the street, shouting Sakura's name worriedly. Her dark-grey robe was wrinkly, probably from trying to pull and pry her older sister away from gambling games, and she looked exhausted.

She approached the children somewhat wearily, holding herself up by putting her hands on the fence-posts of Ino's garden fence, and watching the children laugh up a storm. Seeing her neice having fun with other kits, perhaps for the first time, was a sight that took a good portion of the worry out of her. Still, she said firmly, "Sakura! I've been looking all over for you."

Still laughing but trying to stand up, the kit deftly lied, "I'm sorry, Shizune, I'm sorry, I just wanted to find the antique store me and Sasori walked by earlier, and I found them playing with the ball and they asked if I would join, so…" She broke into laughter again, with one hand poorly supporting her on a fence-post. Tsunade appeared out of nowhere, clothes rumpled like her sister's but with happiness written all over her face for her daughter.

And thusly Sakura made her first friends.

She and her mother and aunt left promptly after goodbyes were said to Kiba, Ino and Hinata and light bandages were applied to cuts and bruises made from being repeatedly hit with a hard bouncing ball and falling on the ground. They continued their tour of Suna, ate at a fantastic restaurant serving famous, spicy Konik dishes, and went home with full bellies and cheery dispositions.

Tsunade and her sister walked Sakura back to Suna sometime later to see her friends, and they played the same game as before and in the same place under the supervision and chatting of Shizune, Tsunade and Ino's father, Inoichi Yamanaka. This went on for several hours until just around twilight, the children never tiring out until the last minute when a joke from Kiba involving chickens and three-legged felis made them fall to their knees with laughter, so much laughter that they found they could barely stand when they were out done.

"Okay, I'm done!" Ino called with exaggerated tiredness. "I wanna go to bed now, Papa. Carry me?" Inoichi sighed and smirked. He waved goodbye to the sisters before picking up his exhausted daughter and carrying her inside his two-story cottage. Kiba walked off after slapping his tail on Sakura's hand and letting her slap her tail on his own hand, in a goodbye gesture the two of them had made up that day. Hinata bowed formally before walking off down the street towards her own home.

Sakura was carried out the Suna gates on Tsunade's back, her clothes scuffed, short hair ruffled and dirty and her small body weary and bruised, but her eyes as vivid and sharp as ever. These eyes were sharp and vivid until her mother set her down in her bed and they closed. Tsunade took this opportunity to lick her daughter's pink ear quickly, and then drew away, closing the door slowly.

Sakura's left eye was open the second the door closed, but she waited another five or six minutes before getting up out of bed and sitting on the windowsill. The stars were out now. And she loved to stargaze.

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At The Information Vault

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At this point in the story, I, the narrator, shall summarize a bit, for there are many adventures going on in the ten days that Sasori is off in his castle speaking to politicians from Saddle, Caspia's capital and we plan to focus mainly on the last of these. Not even moving from one home to another could keep Sakura down for long. On her second day of living outside of Suna, Fell's capital and royal city, she immediately went to her mother, who was still asleep and in bed, and asked to go see her friends in the city. So tired was her mother that she said yes and demanded to be left alone.

Suna's gates were already open even though the sun had risen but a half hour ago, and the guards cheerily let Sakura into the city. Her arrival had sparked a certain happiness in the city residents, as well as in the prince himself. Humans and felis alike seemed to smile at her as she dashed by, not only because she was the prince's chosen (things like "his ward" and "his kit" were also being passed around) but because she emanated energy and spirit, which was only natural, pardon the pun, because she had come from nature itself. Nature could be both her mother, and her father, because she had none.

The fatherless kit was overjoyed to see Ino and Hinata sitting on the front steps of Ino's cottage, plucking honeysuckle and sipping its nectar. Sakura's vast mind briefly recognized that the kits' parents probably were still asleep, and it was just as well: the adults would probably pass on their plans to the prince, and that was the last thing they needed.

When she approached Ino and Hinata she was surprised to find Kiba dash out from behind a patch of garden radishes, and with a quick, "Hey, you wake up super early, too!" they dashed off into the street, plotting their matchmaking games.

Now, once they'd been wandering the city for well over two hours, and the city was awake and bustling and they'd fetched a snack from Kiba's home, the kits found they had about ten plans between them. Most seemed either too impossible (stowing away on a ship to the farthest northern reaches of Konik) or too stupid (asking Sasori to choose another girl outright) and there was only one that made sense and sounded like a grand time.

This plan had been thought up by Ino, to the other kits' surprise—Ino was not usually very bright—and it was something along the lines of "convince Akasuna no Sasori that Sakura is such a troublemaker that she's not worth mating or marrying and he'll demand that she and her family leave like, _now." _

This plan was the only one that made sense because it was doable in their eyes, not impossible at all, and it sounded like a grand time because it was true. In certain ways, Sakura was a troublemaker: in her old home, she'd frequently snuck away to go swimming or climb trees in the night, and in the daytime when her mother and aunt weren't looking she had a habit of being fascinated by and going towards the more dangerous areas like spider nests and dark, smelly holes in the ground.

This, combined with Kiba's "super awesome" knowledge of the city and it's secret routes, would be perfect for finding and making trouble in the best spots. The prince would soon be wishing he was the type of felis that had feline ears, for he'll be wanting to rip them off.

Eight days passed. Kiba, with Ino and Hinata helping, taught Sakura the layout of the city, which streets were best for running freely and not bumping into anyone, which led to candy stores and antique stores, which turned back on each other like mazes, which were best for losing someone who was on your tail. Kiba even knew three or four ways, using windowsills and other platforms, to get on top of roofs. On the sixth day of Sasori's absence, in fact, the kits had a picnic on top of a weapons storehouse that was so near the castle a person could have thrown and object and hit the castle's wall with it.

During this time, Sakura also taught her new friends everything sly and intelligent she knew: the names of constellations and music composers and artists, the many kinds of birds of prey, how to fake sleep and then sneak away when one's parents weren't looking or listening, exactly what lies were best for what situation. This training helped all the kits. On the tenth day, they put their plan into action.

The first step was for all the kits to be in Sakura's home, hiding out of sight of Tsunade and Shizune. Sakura herself would hang about in her room in the attic till Sasori came by. When he arrived, Sakura would drop some object and it would hit the floor. At this signal, the other kits downstairs would startle the Hokage family horses, and the corral gate, oh-so-strangely left open, would let the horses run amok in the fields surrounding Suna.

The horses had also been given gret peppers in their feed, obtained secretly from Hinata's mother's garden. Gret peppers, named for the sound most people made when choking on them, induced irritation and rage in horses and people, and by the time the kits startled the horses the peppers would be well into their system and enrage them. When Sasori went to fetch the horses, sweet soul that he was, he'd probably take a hoof to the chest. This could kill a human but only cause pain to a felis, and certainly Sasori wouldn't want a mate who owned raging, wild horses, yes?

So far, everything was going fantastically. The kits had been hoping Sasori would come in through the window, but had been prepared for him to use the front door and ask her aunt and mother if he could come in. This is what happened, and after the two adult felis women bustled around quite foolishly trying to hide dirty dishes and straighten out-of-place furniture, Sakura's keen ears picked up the sound of Sasori coming up the stairs. She had her carved birds lined up in front of her and was pretending to rearrange them on her dresser.

The door opened. Sakura meticulously aligned the mockingbird, Mercutio, with the little blue jay, Yang. She had Croissant the cardinal in her hand when Sasori took a step into her room. Turning, the kit gasped in surprise and dropped Croissant. The wooden bird bounced once and rolled a bit before stopping. "Ca…Can you _knock, _please?" she cried, shaking her head with distaste. "You think being the most royal person in the world excuses you from manners? Gosh! Aren't politicians supposed to have manners? If you train politicians, then—don't put your tail in my mouth, dude! That's _weird!" _

Sasori's eyes were positively glittering. "Forgive me. I have something to tell you. I was merely wanting the opportunity to tell you faster."

"Since you said forgive me…" Sakura picked up the cardinal and set it in line, not a millimeter off track from Yang the carved jay. "I'm listening."

"Deidara's reminded me that when he was a kit, he was masterful at playing the sitar. I told him you were highly interested in music—"

"Nhhr-_heeeeeeeh_!"

Ears pulling back to her skull in distaste, Sakura frowned. She knew the horses would whinny in surprise, but she'd never heard them make such a sound before. She couldn't even tell which horse was making the noise. She noticed with curiosity that Sasori's hand was on her little, skinny shoulder immediately—his claws were painted black!—and when she went to the window to see what was going on, he went with her. Hinata, Kiba and Ino were out of sight just like they'd planned, to make it seem like the horses were going insane and no kits were annoying them.

The wooden corral gate was wide open and all the horses were rushing out of it. Renee and Ruki, hefty, big draft horses, were bucking like wild bulls and their back hooves hit the ground hard enough to rip up the dirt. Sweet and gentle Maraconn was leaping every which way, foaming at the mouth and screaming. Foxtrot and Camille were no better off.

"My horses! My horses!" Feigning horror and shock, Sakura made to jump out the window—she was willing to do so to make their plan work—but found Sasori's hand grasped her arm before she could get halfway out. With her in tow and worriedly grasping his cloak, the prince jumped out the window and landed soundlessly, running nearly upon hitting the ground. He'd gone about a hundred yards when Ruki and Camille came rushing up to him, lips drawn back and heads bowed as though prepared to skull-bash him.

If Sasori didn't move, Sakura would be directly hit by the mare Ruki. It took the large portion of her seven-year-old will to keep from shivering too horribly much. She did, however, dig her little claws into Sasori's arm, and whispered alarmingly, "Why are you just standing here? They're going to smash us…" she trailed off when Camille, apparently choosing to avoid them, swerved away from Sasori and Sakura and trotted away, calming down. But Ruki was still coming at them full force.

She picked up her worry again. "Move! Move! Ruki's coming!" But the prince didn't move. No, it wasn't until Ruki was ten feet or so away that he moved. The big brown draft kicked off the ground and her front hooves were pointed straight at her victims, as though they meant to strangle or maim. Sasori lifted a hand and flicked two fingers…and Ruki stopped in mid-jump.

The mare was floating. Staring, not saying a word, Sakura was frozen and stayed frozen until Sasori gently let her down from his arm. She stood next to him, tail drooping in a dead manner, normally vivid and clever eyes devoid of emotion. Ruki was panting in mid-air. Calming. Still floating.

The prince flicked his finger downwards…what was that little blue string in the air, Sakura wondered? Ruki swerved in the air and her muscular legs lowered towards the grass. The mare caught herself before she could fall over from the strange sensation. Nickering confusedly and looking about her, Ruki appeared totally calmed now and stood before the pair in the middle of the field as though nothing had happened. Vaguely Sakura recognized the voice of Shizune scurrying towards them with a speed that only a felis could manage.

Sakura turned her head up to the prince, who seemed ridiculously tall at that moment. Flatly, confusion in her eyes, the kit asked, "Are you god?"

She suspected he would grasp her hand or her tail, but Sasori merely looked down at her, fondly per usual, and moved his fingers once more, in a strange pattern. Ruki neighed with alarm when she suddenly was lifted up into the air again, no more than a few inches off the ground, and floated three or four yards away before being let down again. Again Sakura saw a pair of blue strings lashing around in the air before dissipating out of existence.

"If you're god, you should tell me. I would probably embarrass you in front of your angels. Shizune's more...fancy and stuff…than me."

"I'm not god, little one. It's not uncommon for a felis to be able to do something…strange. This is my ability. It is puppetry." Then, apparently not wanting to go any farther on that subject, the prince said, "Were you behind this? I heard other kits downstairs, but it appeared your mother and your aunt didn't. And this horse's breath reeks of gret."

As she often was, Sakura was hit by an impulse. An impulse to tell Sasori, again, that she was not suitable for him. "Yeah, I was. Why would you want a mate who has crazy horses that spit foam and skull-bash people? And I can't remember…when was the last time I said you're too old for me?"

He cocked his head, chocolate eyes darkening in mock pain. "Mmm? You don't like me, is this it?" Sakura made an expression that seemed to question the man's intellect. "Don't like you? No way, I just don't want to marry you or mate you. I like being just your friend, like right now."

The prince's red tail swept left and right musingly. "This is not something you can fight."

"I'm trying anyway." the kit insisted. She did not know exactly what she was saying. Sakura was suggesting she could keep nature from taking its course, and though nature, loving nature, made exceptions for her, it would not shield her from a path that had been lain for her since birth, that many felis before her had taken and she was taking even now.

He bent down to her level and leaned his forehead against hers. Sakura felt very small in comparison, more than usual, and put on an irritated sort of expression that made her eyes turn fiery and determined. This in turn reminded Sasori of his dream of her, seven years ago, and his heart soared with the past memory and the present sight.

"It doesn't matter. You're mine, little one, and try as you might, nothing is going to change that." Harshly, almost rudely, she wrapped her tail around Sasori's and pulled.

"You _wait." _she said warningly.

Ruki nickered, seeming to grin.

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Well, it's late on a Sunday night, and I don't have time for many comments. Gotta go to bed soon. I'll do this quickly: I thought this story would be only three chapters, but currently it's leaning towards five or six, this is quite short at fifteen pages, Sweeney Todd is an absolutely fantastic movie, next chapter will be more childhood adventures with Sakura and her pals. You know, childhood adventures: scaring and irritating world-influencing politicians, breaking/destroying holy artifacts, making a fool of the most powerful man on the planet. All adventures we had as kids. Imagined or otherwise.

Sakura wanting to be a musician when she grows up may or may not be a big plot device later on. I took a trumpet class in sixth grade, but I daydreamed once and missed the teacher's instruction on sheet music, so because of that one little screw-up I can't read it for shit. I have no idea what note-picture-thing corresponds to what button on the trumpet, and my knowledge of playing instruments is zero beyond making noise on a trumpet, so if I make a mistake in that area, I'm sorry.

Ta and good night…Storm


	3. III

After seeing an absolutely _fantastic _Sasori cosplayer, I couldn't get my own fanfiction out of my mind so I may as well write some of it before the feeling wears off. The fantastic cosplayer, by the way, is on deviantART. In the search bar up top, search "Sasori cosplay" and the first result, top left, should be one posted by a person with the account name "snj-dei." This girl has three more pictures of herself as Sasori, and I really, really suggest you take a look if you're a fangirl. Seeing this cosplayer made me feel a whole lot better about the Shippuden anime going into a depressing filler arc.

What else to say besides the fact that this story shall not be review replying, so if you reviewed and asked a question, I shall be PM-ing you? Hmm…read Watership Down or the Redwall series and be amazed? Can you believe the direction the manga is going right now? Can you believe the direction the _anime _is going right now?

Whatever. Insert beginning of chapter…below this sentence.

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February 16th, 3:44 PM (many months after the events of chapter two)

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For a felis, a birthday wasn't nearly as big a deal as it was for a human. A felis would have almost a thousand birthdays and only the first thirty or so were truly exciting. A felis above that age would be given mild and plain gifts, pretty quills or pens or a decent piece of jewelry, nothing that was too grand. But for Sasori, whose birthday had just passed on the eleventh, who was the prince of an entire continent, that typical felis rule didn't apply.

The tradition for his family, that is, the royal line, was for the greatest artists of Fell to gather in Suna or a city near it and together paint some fantastic picture, which would be presented to the royal one at noon on their birthday in Suna's town square. There, there was space for most of the residents and most everyone could get a good view of the painting before cheering and clapping as it was carried off to the castle.

The royal family of Fell had a special gallery in one of their many castle cellars, hung with thousands of paintings given to the family years before on other birthdays. The aristocrats and politicians who occasionally came to the castle could only dream of being allowed to see even a glance of the "Birthday Gallery."

Thus was Sasori's gift from the finest artists of Fell. This year, surrounded by bronze framework, he received a watercolor painting of a horse. Horses were common subjects of the Fell family's birthday paintings, and each one was different. This painting was of Foxtrot, Sakura's own horse, the same horse that Sasori had ridden with her on the journey from her old home to Suna. The trotter horse had one leg lifted up and his head read and his white mane waving in some unseen wind. His chestnut-bronze coat seemed to be glowing and he appeared to be some sort of mythical god, and some Suna residents, who had seen Foxtrot themselves, even cried.

On his birthday, on the eleventh of February, Sakura had no idea what to get Sasori. Her mother and aunt assured her that thousands all over Fell never gave the prince anything on his birthday, because their gifts were all represented in the one painting given by the artists. Sakura could understand this, but still felt she was obligated.

Her exact words were, "Well with this weird bond thing me and him have goin' on, giving him nothing is just…just…freakin' stupid!" Sakura was promptly scolded for her "curse word."

As a prince he had several issues to deal with every day, and it was only about once a week he found the time to get away from loud, whining representatives from various townships around the continent and politicians annoyingly advising him to do this or that and visit "his kit" as Sakura was often called.

He had four ways to spend free time—the most common option was to go to Tsunade's cottage and visit with everyone there as they always had things to tell and to ask him, to do something stupid like deer hunting or sculpting with his friend and "secretary" Deidara, to walk around Suna and hope to come up with mental solutions while walking, or to sleep. He was often needed as early as five in the morning, and a council meeting could drag on as late as eleven. Deidara swore that sometime in November he found the prince at Tsunade's cottage, sleeping at the kitchen table with his head resting on the table in a most unprincely way.

But I have drifted off subject, friends. Apologies. The point I am trying to make is, on February sixteenth, five days after his birthday and the next chance he had to do something on his own time, Sasori walked the half-mile or so to Tsunade's cottage, politely knocked, and was answered by Sakura who told him exactly she was going to give him for a late birthday present.

"It's going to be way late," she warned, closing the door as the prince walked in and observed the kit's mother trying to stitch a worn pair of reins. "Years late. I'm probably going to be as big as you when you finally get it."

Sasori doubted she would ever be as "big" as him. Most everyone who knew the kit understood she would be small and lean the rest of her life.

"I'm gonna be a violinist when I'm older. I'll be able to play 'Heartfelt' with my eyes closed, I'll be so good." Tsunade turned her head as she heard her kit purring at the prospect. She and the prince both smiled. "And when I'm good enough, I'll write a song—the kind with no words, with an instrument only. And that song will be for you."

Shizune, who had poked her head into the room when she heard her niece speaking, was almost in tears, and her sister fared just the same. In place of a thank-you, Sasori crouched down her to level, closed his eyes and kissed the little kit on the cheek. Shizune felt like a lovestruck teenager again and turned her head away to keep from squealing at the adorability.

To hide her discomfort with the thank-you peck and hoping her ears weren't pinned to her skull in embarrassment, Sakura noted, "You'd be an even more awesome person if you weren't so uptight all the time. Normal people just say 'thanks', even if they're princes."

Sakura made sure to stand by for ten or eleven minutes while the adults sat down and spoke. It was a snowy but sunny day outside and she wanted to both play in the snow and get away from Sasori who now was slightly more intimidating than usual. However, she knew that if she left immediately the grown-ups would know she was embarrassed.

Kiba, like her, was a firm believer that parents didn't need to know everything, so hanging about with the brunette felis kit for months now had strengthened her opinion that she'd rather die than let the adults know she was embarrassed. So, she stood by the table and listened to them talk, occasionally frowning as someone reached over to pet her.

She was genuinely interested about the clan of wild polar bears ravaging the Falabella mountains in the northern reaches of Konik, the same place where the Hokage family's horse, Camille, came from. Shizune got them into a conversation of horses after that—which has better capabilities as a draft horse? The Clydesdale or the Breton?—but Sasori didn't seem that interested in horses, despite the fact that he had nearly a hundred and had named about twenty of them himself.

After the adults got away from horses and into the story of Tsunade's old friend Orochimaru and his death from black fever, the story she'd heard dozens of times, Sakura decided it was time to leave. She'd spent enough time in the grown-ups' presence for them to think that she wasn't embarrassed about the prince kissing her, and she very much was.

She went up the stairs, passing the two rooms that made up the second floor—her mother's and aunt's rooms—and up to her own room in the attic. Sakura's bright emerald eyes sparkled briefly as she looked at the pair of reed whistles sitting on her dresser, next to her oil night-lamp. She snickered mischievously, remembering exactly how the bloodstains got there.

It had been about three months before Sasori and his party of red carrier horses and soldiers had come to bring her and her family their new home. Sakura had snuck downstairs and out of the house well after midnight, with the intention of practicing her flute-playing and by doing so, singing a lullaby to the moon, which Sakura was sure would like a lullaby now and again.

With her natural endurance and strength the kit had run a mile before climbing up the tallest tree she could find, to the highest branch where the moon could hear her best, and began playing 'The Seventeenth Ballad,' an old Caspian folk song.

It just so happened that a wasp hawk was nesting in Sakura's tree and was awakened by her playing her little reed flute. You must understand, reader, a wasp hawk is larger than a housecat, and it's feathers are fantastic patterns of black and yellow, and it is just as fierce and aggressive as any wasp. Agitated by the lovely music, the wasp hawk flew up to Sakura and began pecking at her, screeching furiously. The kit climbed down the tree while trying to hit the hawk away with her flute. She finally got to the ground and waved her flute irritably at the wild bird all the way home.

The pecks and scratches the bird inflicted bled and her blue pajamas sprouted patches of red everywhere. No matter how much the little kit hit and struck the bird, it would not stop harassing her. Finally, when she arrived back at her cottage she rushed upstairs to her room as quietly and as fast as possible. The wasp hawk screamed and circled the home and Tsunade and Shizune were awakened by the horrible noise.

They went to Sakura's room immediately and found her with her blankets covering her shivering form and a big wasp hawk screaming and scraping its talons at the glass window trying to get to her. Shizune was one of the many felis to have a sort of "ability" at her disposal, and hers was to create needles out of the air that could pierce into most anything. Shizune hated using this as she was a pacifist, but used it to drive away the bird from their home. The wasp hawk flew away with pointed needles sticking out of its breast.

Tsunade comforted her daughter who was seemingly scared to death of the bird that had come to her window in the night and began screeching. Tsunade never moved the blankets from her daughter so never saw her red-splotched pajamas or her bloodstained flute and never knew her young kit had run off into the night to play a song to the moon and gotten attacked by a hawk.

When the two women left, Sakura changed pajamas silently and put her flute away next to its twin, which got some of the blood from the first flute stuck to it. Tsunade and Shizune never did find out why those two flutes had blood on them.

Remembering that exciting, intense and painful night, Sakura smiled deviously at her own cleverness and fetched her coat and snow boots. Until one of her friends came out of Suna's gates to play with her, she'd make a snowman outside the house.

Halfway down the stairs Sakura couldn't keep herself from grinning and waving her pink feline tail with gusto. _'Maybe I'll make a snow _hawk!' she thought, and when the adults saw her go outside into the cold day with a little grin on her face all three of them got the same, but completely wrong idea.

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At The Information Vault (get used to months-long time-skips in this story)

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In this world of four great continents and long-living feline people with strange abilities and dreams, a school was almost nonexistence. That is, a school that was gone to before a university. Most felis kits and human children never went to school, but were taught as much as their parents or guardians could teach them. Tutors, however, did exist, usually only teaching three or four at a time and teaching almost any subject one could imagine, and it was mostly families who had some money to spare that hired tutors.

Tsunade's money was handled by one of Sasori's many servants, "money handlers," as Deidara simply called them. She needed not worry about paying for her land or any debts she had. The prince took care of those and, if she pleased, she never needed to work for money a day in her life ever again. Any crops she planted and harvested with the help of her two draft horses brought in money that she and her family spent at their leisure. This money was more than enough to get Sakura a violin tutor. Sasori made sure she had the most excellent tutor to be found on the continent.

The most excellent violin tutor happened to be Asuma Sarutobi, an average blacksmith who taught violin as a "side business" with his wife, Kurenai. Both were felis half-breeds, and both in their four hundred eighties, very old for half-breeds. Naturally, though, they retained their youth. Unnaturally, though, their appearances were forever locked around the age of twenty-five or so, quite old an age to appear when the average for felis and felis half-breeds was nineteen.

Sasori first began to speak about a tutor for her a week or so after her eighth birthday. His present to her was a Versace of grand quality, which Sakura carried around her house in a zombie-like fashion for the rest of that day.

When Shizune and Sasori questioned this behavior she replied something to the extent of, "It's too beautiful to play unless I actually have to…if I even make a noise on it and a tutor didn't tell me to, or if I made a noise on it and it was ugly, then it'd be like…like…like a crime or something. It's too pretty."

It was not Sakura's mention of a tutor that made the prince decide to get her one, though. He'd been planning to for weeks, but hadn't been able to find a suitable one. Though Asuma and Kurenai Sarutobi were said to be the best on the continent, Sakura found it strange that Sasori's tail would curl angrily whenever the husband of the pair, Asuma was mentioned alone. Per her nature, Sakura never said a word about this thing she wanted to know about; someone would surely explain it sooner or later.

With a request from the prince himself sent to their mailbox, Asuma and Kurenai's felis ears had probably popped off their heads in surprise. The letter was sent on the last day of March, arrived at their home on the other side of the continent roughly three weeks later, and their reply another three weeks later. It was on the anniversary of the prince first coming to the Hokage family's farm that Sakura learned her tutors would were on their way to Suna, and would arrive in the middle of June.

So with three or so weeks to do nothing but wait for the couple who would send her down the road to music, Sakura found the days especially boring. At least, she complained about that on the first two days, before realizing she had plenty to do around the city—even under it, what with Kiba's insane secret passages. One of her favorite places to play around, or just exist within, for it could be just as nice, was Suna's great castle.

During the year or so Sakura had known Sasori, it became commonplace for her to go into the castle whenever she pleased, even more so during these weeks when she waited for her violin tutors. She made a point to always ask the pair of soldiers who guarded the front gate, but they let her in with smiles and an air of cheer every time, insisting that as the prince's chosen she never needed to ask.

With this, the castle's layout became Sakura's second nature, or one of her many second natures. She learned the maze of hallways and stairways and the dead-ends and which windows would be safe to jump out of should anything bad ever go on in that huge place. She liked the prince's room especially, which was set in the middle of one of the three tall castle towers, roughly four stories up.

She considered his bed a station of entertainment, as she could set a cup of water on one side of it and jump on the other and the water glass wouldn't so much as tremble. There was also the fact that it was unbeliebably springy, and jumping on it was as close as one could get to flying. Another lovely factor the wondrous view the two windows gave and the wall taken up almost completely by bookshelves and a fireplace hearth.

She made sure she was never there as the same time as a prince and was fully prepared to jump out the window if need be. (There was a good chance she'd land in some trees, so at least she wouldn't die, yes?) The last thing she needed was to be caught messing up the prince's chamber, which had to be punishable by death if not life in prison. Being banished from the royal city was one thing, getting killed was another.

The kit also got to know the staff on a personal level. They learned of her curious intelligence and slyness, the odd things she had in her room—bloody flutes and mammoth bones—her ridiculously huge appetite and her charming reluctance to admit she knew the prince so intimately.

The head chef's assistant was a brunette human girl of fourteen years called Tenten. When Sakura first met her and asked which continent she came from, the brunette replied airily, "none," and then explained she'd been born on the ship voyage from Caspia, so wasn't technically from any of the four lands.

She had originally been hired into the royal family's staff because one of the prince's advisors had noticed her deftness with throwing things in her hometown of Akhal-Teke on the southern coast of Fell. She could be blinded and still throw a knife in the center of the target with careless ease. The advisor had thought she was so skilled she could teach the prince's soldiers about using weaponry, but some way or other the head chef, Anko Mitarashi, found Tenten's skill was fantastic for a cook to have, so took the brunette under her wing.

"You're so laid back!" Sakura exclaimed after she'd met and had spoken with Tenten for five minutes. "I like you. You do everything like you have all the time in the world to do it." And she was right.

Tenten was content and cool in everything she did and even on the rare occasion when she got worried that some dish had been in the ovens too long she moved with a strange carelessness that made clever Sakura wonder why no felis she'd met had this quality. When she rolled dough or cut up meat she whistled or hummed or tapped her foot or even did things with her eyes closed.

"Could I bring my friends in here to meet you?" the kit asked one day, the 22nd of May, to be exact.

They were at one of the many wooden tables in the kitchens, Sakura sitting atop it next to a basket of russet apples and Tenten standing and cutting them on a cutting-board. "There's just three. We won't get in the way…well, Ino might. But we can control her pretty good no matter how stupid she is."

Eyes half-closed and cutting russet apples in half, the human girl muttered, "If you bring them today or tomorrow, sure. I can probably give you guys a snack, too. But if you come the day after tomorrow, I'll be real busy. Old Baki is coming." And as she cut apples with her eyes closed at a rate of one every five seconds, Tenten did not give the impression that she could ever be busy.

"Who's old Baki?" the eight-year-old asked, subtly taking one of the apples and a knife and trying to cut a piece off that she could eat while hidden behind the basket. Tenten didn't seem to notice.

"He's an advisor to the King and Queen of Noriker. The queen's name is Temari, but I don't remember the king's name. They're not even two hundred years old yet. Very young for felis."

"Did the king dream about the queen and then mate her?" Sakura knew that, calm and easygoing as Tenten was, she often missed subtle or even obvious hints other people gave her. This was one such occasion: she didn't realize Sakura was alluding to herself and Sasori in a way. The assistant cook shook her head. "Nah, they met because they were walking on the same road somewhere in western Noriker and the king-guy accidentally stepped on Temari's foot. And then somehow they fell in love and she became queen when she married him."

"Wow."

"I know."

"So what about old Baki?"

Tenten tossed an apple up in the air and it landed on the table behind her, directly in the middle of a pan sitting and simmering over a fire. The apple began to roast and smoke. "Yeah, an advisor to the Noriker king and queen. They call him 'old Baki' because he's one of the oldest people in the whole Noriker castle. Seven hundred and sixty something. The king's really lazy and laid-back and the queen's loud and uptight so sometimes his advice gets taken to heart and sometimes not. Depends on who's listening. And he's coming to Suna with some other important people from the four castles to talk about something…polar bears, I think."

By now there were eight apples roasting on the pan. Sakura stared at them, hunger growing in her. But this wasn't enough to distract her. She could clearly remember Fell's prince and her mother and aunt talking about a polar bear pack laying waste to a mountain range in Konik. But if the polar bears were damaging Konik, why was an advisor from a totally different continent coming...to… And it occurred to the kit.

The polar bear problem was so bad all four of the great continents had to come together in a meeting and decide on what to do about it.

"So if you want your friends here, you'd better bring 'em soon, okay?" Tenten murmured almost sleepily. "If they like roasted apples, tell them I'm saving one or two and I'll eat 'em if they don't come fast enough."

The pink-haired kit had cut a pretty deep but crude and jagged hack in her apple. She gave up on it and slyly set it back in the basket to make it appear as though the apple had grown that way and she hadn't touched it at all or mutilated it or anything else horrible. Finding now was a great time to leave, Sakura dodged under the legs of another passing cook and waved goodbye. "I'll go get 'em right now, Tenten! I'll come back soon, okay?"

She made sure not to grin until she was out of the kitchens and speeding down a long arched hallway that bore huge stained-glass windows, and walls that were hung with silken, velvet drapes. Here, she grinned wide and cunning where no one could see or hear her. Here was a perfect opportunity that even a dull kit like Ino could see.

Her plans to make the prince dislike her had slackened in the last few months, in the last several months actually, as their last big plan—a failure—had been launched on the last day of January, and now it was nearly June. She'd had well over a year to get the prince to choose another female for himself, and she'd hardly made any progress at all. If anything, he'd gotten more attached, and she couldn't decide if _she _was or not, because she felt mostly the same about the subject as the day she'd met him, no matter what a nice person he was.

But here was a chance! Advisors to kings and queens and politicians and who knew who else would be hanging around Sasori's castle to talk about rampaging polar bears in Konik. There were few better chances than this to cause mayhem and horror in front of the prince. And already Sakura's cunning mind had whisked up half a dozen plans to get the prince to throw her and her family out of the city. But since they technically lived almost a mile _outside _the city, he'd probably kick them all over the mountains that surrounded Suna's great, grassy fields.

Imagine what the calm and wise prince would do when he saw bears, rampaging horses or exploding firecrackers livening up his council meetings.

Why yes, lovely reader, our clever little eight-year-old kit _did _have ways of getting those things. It makes us wonder what kind of a person she'll grow up to be…

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Guess what? You Airborne fans may recognize this pattern. I wrote a chapter so long that for practical reasons I'm going to post it as two chapters. What you just read is the first half of what I wrote. In a few days (time for me, the greedy author, to stock up a few reviews) I will post the second half. I can promise you the second half, the next chapter, will be much more exciting.

I finished this late on a Sunday night, for the third time in a row for this story. I won't say I need a life. Lives are boring, sad and repetitive and I don't see why anyone would really want one. Fanfiction lives, like mine, are fun, usually happy, and not usually repetitive.

Next chapter we'll see what scheme the eight-year-olds (ah, wait, Kiba and Ino are nine-year-olds) are going to launch, and the chapter after that Sakura and her friends will be twelve-ish and probably fourteen-ish by the end of that chapter. The chapter after _that _will contain slightly less fluff, and more of the romance I've been promising since day one. Dang, this story is dragging out a lot more than I first though. Till then…

Ta…Storm


	4. IV

Here is the second half of my chapter, which ended up being 20 pages long so was cut in half to be practical. Note that in the beginning of this chapter, Sakura and her family have resided at Suna for roughly a year and a month.

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June 9th, 11:03 AM

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Two weeks, more or less, had passed. The arrival of her violin teachers constantly collided with the launching of Sakura's destruction plan for the council in Sasori's castle. She realized that she needed the council meeting to be broken up with raging chaos _before _her tutors got to Suna, but then realized that if Sasori banished her and her family from the Suna area then Tsunade might not have enough money to pay Asuma and Kurenai, the tutors.

When she explained this problem to her friends, Hinata musingly said, "Take money from the politicians," and the other three kits stared at her, unbelieving that the quiet girl could possibly even think such devious things. "If they're politicians and advisors, they have to be rich…don't they? They probably have money on their clothes s-somewhere, so you can take that and when the prince kicks you out, you and your family will have money for the um, tutors."

"I love you." Kiba and Sakura said at once, and, catching on, Ino repeated the phrase and brought them all together for a group hug. The kits all felt glad that they were sitting on the roof of some clothing shop, unable to be seen by anyone.

You may be wondering why Sakura's friends are so happy to help her get banished from the area when they all care for her so much. Their solution was that they'd simply send letters back and forth to communicate, and their parents were all nice enough to allow them to travel and visit each other at least once a year, so they wouldn't completely lose each other, and that was plain enough for all of them.

They sat there on the roof of the clothing shop as Hinata and Sakura, the two most knowledgeable in the area of animals, told Ino and Kiba of the various types of bears in the world, and of the traveling carnival that they'd heard would be passing at a town very near Suna. The town was called Friesian, and the carnival was going to be packed up into several gigantic wagons for the night before setting up shop the next day. A traveling carnival would doubtlessly have bears trained to balance balls on their noses or to dance jigs. With bears trained like that, it would be easy to give them signals that meant "Attack these people" and send them roaring upon the politicians. It was mostly Sakura's fine connection with nature and animals that made them feel this plan was only _slightly_ over-the-top, but then again none of the children were even ten years old yet, so their judgment for this sort of thing was not the best.

The youngest two female kits, Hinata and Sakura, decided that grizzly bears were better than Konik red bears, and hoped that the traveling carnival—which they would sneak off by night on Foxtrot to see—had grizzlies. And if not, surely they had some wild animal that the kits could borrow for a bit.

The children spent the next hour or so discussing which horses would be best to take them to the traveling carnival. Foxtrot would be one and he was enough to carry two or three of the children, but another would be needed to carry the other one or two, and probably another horse would be needed to pull along the animals they planned to borrow from the carnival. The kits were still deciding if they should bring some herb or medicine to put the animals to sleep, and even if they didn't, why not bring along another horse? It would be some extra muscle no matter how they ended up doing things.

"Foxtrot and Renee and Ruki, because they're all pretty strong." said Kiba at last. "But Feathering, too. She's my family's cart horse. When we go to other towns near Suna, Feathering pulls our carriage. She's a Saddlebred, a big black one, so big some people think she's a draft horse. I bet she could carry _three _grizzly bears on her back!"

"And Toshiro, too, maybe…" Hinata added. "My parents have three horses, and Toshiro's strongest. He's a mountain pony, kind of small, but, uh, uh, pretty strong. He can carry my mother and father at the same time pretty fast."

So it was decided. Late that night, the children would take those five horses to Friesian, the nearest town, where the traveling carnival would be staying for the week. They would borrow a few bears or wildcats or elephants and bring them to Suna through Kiba's secret passageways. The politicians were in the castle already, sleeping in guest rooms at night and touring the city by day, and that night they would awaken to wild animals rampaging everywhere.

The children spent the rest of the day inside Ino's home, putting together puzzles and looking through picture books so hopefully no one would guess the grand-theft-animal operation they were planning.

They all agreed to meet at eleven at night, in the Stables. The Stables, you see, are where most of the Suna residents keep their horses, as only a few Suna houses had barns and grassy backyards fit for horses. Thankfully, none of the three Suna children had such things in their homes, so they didn't have to go through the trouble of suspiciously sneaking through the Suna city gates at night with big old horses. Kiba's knowledge of the city allowed them to crawl through an underground tunnel under the city wall, and come up through a rabbit hole just a few meters away from the outside of the wall.

"Genius," Ino muttered jealously as they crawled out of the hole and dashed silently over to Sakura's cottage. She was standing next to her family's barn when they arrived, and she opened the big red door silently to reveal Foxtrot the trotter horse and Renee and Ruki, the draft horses, fully equipped and ready for riding.

Ino and Hinata rode together on Ruki, who was slightly gentler than her twin sister. Kiba rode Renee and Sakura rode Foxtrot, all making their silent and swift way across the fields to the other side in a great half circle, where the castle had its back to them, where the Stables were. This place, thank goodness, was only guarded by six human men, whose senses could never detect the four wily felis kits coming into the barn from the back entrance. It was made up of five warm, sound-muffling stone buildings anyway, and the odds of being found were very low. It was certainly safe enough to enter.

Toshiro, Hinata's small mountain pony, stood out clearly in his stall, as his light gray coat seemed to glow in the dark night. The stallion recognized one of his masters, and when the violet-haired kit touched his muzzle, he knew to be quiet. Kiba found Feathering, the great black Saddlebred, and she acted up at being woken from her sleep. The kits patted her as soothingly as they could while leading Toshiro, Renee, Ruki and Foxtrot back out of the Stables.

The humans never saw the kits or noticed the two missing horses out of the hundreds in the Stables, and also never heard said kits and horses riding away over the fields and into the woods far beyond.

"We're fugitives!" Kiba screamed once they'd ridden well over two miles into the woods. "We're stealin' stuff! We're gonna give it back, yeah, but we're _evil!" _The five horses were tied together by ropes on their reins so as not to get seperated for any reason, and these ropes were held both in the hands of Sakura and Ino. The horses tugged on their ropes as they picked up on the excitement of the night atmosphere around them. They whinnied in response to it, pounding their hooves harder and harder on the dirt path.

Once the tops of the huge trees faded, the even more enormous mountains reared up before them, and the children gasped, never having seen anything so absolutely colossal. These mountains ringed the forests, which ringed the fields, which ringed Suna, and thusly they surrounded the royal city in a great circle. Even the excited horses calmed as the group passed between the great walls of tan-colored rock. Once past these, however, after a half hour or so of cantering in silent awe, a hilly spread of rocky land showed itself, sloping slightly downward toward another forest several miles away. Twenty or so miles beyond that forest was Friesian, where the carnival was waiting for them.

The next two and a half hours passed with wonderful, childish jokes and stories and anticipation of the operation.

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June 10th, 12:58 AM (late at night)

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Six mansion-sized wagons sitting motionless and dark on the outskirts of the little city of Friesian marked the traveling carnival. There were no people about, no scent of anything but the weird mixture of animals, sweat and sweet candies. The four kits let their five horses stand between two of the huge wagons without anyone holding their ropes. Thank goodness, here were three great bears, two grizzlies slumbering in a wrought-iron cage and in a neighboring cage, one…

"What's with that littler one?" Ino asked, pointing to a bear hardly the size of a human adult, whose coat was pathetically short but beautifully sleek. Sakura looked up from her job of unlocking the grizzlies' cage with a metal pin, and looked in at the third bear. The bear lifted his head and showed a yellowish mark on his chest.

"It's a sun bear! Wow!" the green-eyed kit exclaimed. "That's the smallest bear there is. And look at his muscles! He's pretty big for a sun bear. Most aren't even as big as little Toshiro there."

Kiba had taken Sakura lock-picking pin from her while she fluttered all about the sun bear's cage, and had now picked the lock. It clicked open and fell into his palm, and the metal cage doors opened. The two grizzly bears, one male and one female, stared at the foreign kits sleepily. The male bear, the larger one, lumbered out of his cage and stood up on his hind legs. He was taller than any human or felis the kits had ever seen.

"Whoa."

"You can say that again."

"I should say it five times again. Two times isn't good enough. Isn't big enough."

After knowing Sakura for over a year, the kits found out about her relationship with mother nature: how leeches never stuck onto her after a swim in a lake, how she spent nearly all her time climbing or running under the sun, and how animals—_most _animals—acted calmer when near her. Luckily, this was the case with the three carnival bears. The male grizzly had no problem with Sakura slipping a rope collar around his neck and tying said rope to Feathering's reins.

The female grizzly, and the sun bear when he was freed from his cage, were also complacent with being collared. The job was easier than they'd suspected, but they all became tense and furious when Ino suddenly exclaimed, "Oh my gosh! Look at this thing, look, look!"

The sun bear became somewhat annoyed at Ino's high-pitched voice and had to be calmed by Sakura's petting to keep from standing up and growling in pure annoyance. Hinata and Kiba stayed by the five horses and the three carnival bears while Sakura ran over to Ino on the other side of the huge carnival wagon. Ino was pointing up at a huge creature sitting next to a dark camping tent like some kind of freaky watchdog. An orange, spotted thing with long skinny legs and a ridiculously long neck.

"It's a giraffe." Sakura murmured excitedly, her pink feline ears twitching. "We _have _to take this one with us. Bears are scary if they're attacking people, but if they see a giraffe running around the castle, they won't know _what _to think! It'll be even better!"

So the giraffe, named Shimmer by Ino for her eyes that appeared like glittering jewels, was given a rope collar (with much trouble and jumping) and given to Hinata to hold while she rode Ruki the brown draft horse. Sakura mounted Foxtrot again with the female grizzly's rope secured around her hand and to Foxtrot's saddle. Her connection with nature was serving her better than it ever had been before.

"Try to keep quiet on the trip back home, okay?" Hinata whispered. She reached over to pet the giraffe's side. "If we make noise and someone's around and sees a bunch of kits with a whole lot of animals, th-they'll think we're evil or something and they'll tell other people…and we want to keep really really secret, so just be quiet okay?" Hinata's nervousness at the whole operation was showing.

As though in response Renee, Ruki's twin, trotted over and nuzzled the kit. "Yeah, Renee's right!" Ino whispered as the group set off at a brisk trot, bears and giraffe in tow. "We'll be quiet, Hinata, chill out, okay? We got the daughter o' nature right here! Everything's gonna be fine."

The male grizzly stopped loping along, sat down, and burped, and set a happier mood for the trip back. Kiba named the male grizzly "Boomer" as the burp had echoed seemingly everywhere in the night.

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June 10th, 4:52 AM

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The politicians, advisors, and "important people" as the Suna residents humorously dubbed them, had arrived at the Suna castle two days ago, had been given rooms to stay in, and invited to treat themselves to anything the castle or the city had to offer. Most enjoyed the fine horseback riding in the fields just outside the city, theatre plays and music shows in the amphitheatres or just relaxed under the excuse that they couldn't ever do it at home.

One of these "important people" was Kushina Uzumaki, a human woman of twenty-nine, the queen of Konik. Her husband Minato had been unable to come to Fell for unspoken reasons, and she was the only "royalty" attending the gathering. There were no other kings or queens but she, she outranked all others and thusly the room she stayed in was just a floor below Sasori's, a most honorable position. The bed was four-post and large enough for three people if for some reason needed, and one wall was made up entirely of a window that showed Suna's encircling mountain range and the forests below it, not to mention the lovely moon.

The Suna castle was in the very back of the city and looked out over it and the mountain pass leading out of the area, but Kushina's room faced the other way, towards the lesser-used mountain pass that led to Friesian. Kushina woke once late at night to sip some water, and afterwards she lay in bed, exhausted and ready for sleep once more, whenever it came. But her eyes, sharp for a human, caught a glint through her enormous window coming from the mountain pass to Friesian.

The redheaded woman sat up in bed and stared. Her eyesight was flawless, but she couldn't help wondering if she was really seeing a party of children leading horses and bears—and a giraffe!— towards the rear of the city. The glimmer she'd seen was the giraffe's shimmering black eyes, and…did that child have pink hair?

"The…the prince's kit?" she gasped to herself. "What is she doing…?" But halfway through that sentence a childish and devious smirk broke out on her face. Stories had spread all over the world of the kit's adorable reluctance to accept her bond with Fell's redheaded prince, her devious schemes to get said prince to throw her off his land, most of which caused some amount of local mayhem before only strengthening the prince's fondness for her dangerous and fiery heart.

Kushina covered her mouth to keep from laughing. "Are they really, g-g-going to!" She could picture it plainly: a trio of bears and a giraffe running amok in the prince's castle.

Kushina only wished she knew how the children planned to get those animals into the city when it was surrounded by a wall and its gates were closed, not to mention how they would get into the fortress-like castle!

She lay in bed, pillows fluffed many times over, smiling and giggling to herself like some naughty child, waiting for the inevitable screaming of some poor staff member who would be having a heart attack within the hour.

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June 10th, 5:31 AM

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"GOD IN HEAVEN! SOMEONE _DO _SOMETHING!"

"Anko, move! Move! _MOVE!" _

Don't you feel bad for the poor prince of Fell, the poor felis fellow who has to wake up to that at five-thirty in the morning?

Sasori's belief in a higher power above was just strengthened a little; there was no one in his personal chambers to see his eyes shoot open in shock and his tail bristle. In ways unknown to us common folk, he was out of his grand room and four stories down, on the main level of the castle, in less than a minute, and his elegant nightclothes and hair weren't even ruffled.

When he arrived at the bottom of the stairwell and turned a corner it was only a quick and graceful dodge that saved him from being hit by a flying carrot. Said carrot hit something with a dull thud and an animal—an animal?!—roared behind him. He turned and saw a pair of bears standing roughly ten feet away from him, on their hind legs, roaring and waving their paws in fury.

One was surely a grizzly; the shaggy brown coat and incredible standing height told that. The other was a species unknown to him. It was only just half the size of the grizzly, colored black with a single yellow chest marking, and its coat was thin and sleek, hardly making it look any bigger than it was. However contrasting the pair of creatures were, they were angry and unmistakably aggressive. The smaller bear, the black one, was foaming at the mouth.

"Move, Majesty, move!" It was the voice of Anko, the head chef of the castle. Obediently, he moved and narrowly missed being hit by a projectile that moved so fast he couldn't tell just what it was. The object struck the giant grizzly in the neck and it staggered back a step before going down on four paws and charging past Sasori towards Anko. But Anko had run away and the grizzly ran off down another random castle corridor, bellowing all the way. Sasori was left with the thin-coated, smaller bear, who was taking some threatening steps towards him.

Being a felis, the prince of Fell had a unique ability given to him at birth, some form of puppetry that allowed him to move and control…most things. There were some random objects he couldn't move with the ability, such as oak leaves, spoons, certain people, certain animals…

But this black, skinny bear was no exception. It took only a few fancy finger movements to have the bear lifted into the air and slammed three or four times against a wall until it fell into unconsciousness. He set it down with unnecessary force, dropping it from seven or eight feet in the air. The bear would sleep for several hours, and by that time, it would be restrained and returned to wherever it came from.

His ears, human yet sharp as that of any felis with feline ears, picked up the sound of a trio of people running down a stairway near him. There was something large running behind them, not quite as big as a bear, or at least not as heavy and lumbering. He recognized the voice of Kushina Uzumaki, the queen of Konik, who was not screaming, but _laughing_ for some unearthly reason.

A door burst open twenty feet down a hall to his right, and out came the queen herself in her turquoise nightgown, followed by Sir Baki, a felis advisor to the king and queen of Noriker, and a black-haired felis man whose name he vaguely remembered was Uchiha. They ran towards him, Kushina trying to hide her smile and the felis man and Baki looking ready to have seizures. The door they'd come through was kicked out of the way and against the wall by a quartet of long, skinny yellow legs, which could only belong to…

"What is a _giraffe _doing plodding about in my home?" he questioned rather threateningly. No one answered. The giraffe was having some trouble moving its head low enough to pass through, and was apparently thinking that kicking the air with its four skinny legs would eventually make it so that it could slip its long neck through the wall and continue on its way.

"Giraffes can't go down _stairs, _Ino! They'd bump their heads on the ceiling since it's sloping down! Now look at Shimmer, the door's so low she's stuck at the bottom! Come on, help me bring her back upstairs!"

He felt the hand of the Konik queen on his shoulder. "Akasuna no Sasori…" The woman was addressing him formally. Unusual for her boyish, carefree personality. "I'm not completely sure, but I believe your kit is behind this. Is that voice hers?"

"It is." He murmured, making his way towards the flailing giraffe legs.

Who would have thought that, to get his attention, the kit would sneak wild animals into his castle? Into a castle that no thief had been able to penetrate for the last decade?

That kit would have a surprise when he got to her.

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June 10th, 5:33

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"Well…I don't think giraffes are, you know…_made _to go down stairs, Sakura!" Hinata said exasperatedly. Her small violet felis ears were twitching in fear. She knew she would get punished for this, she knew they all would, but they knew it would be worth it for a good friend. Now she couldn't help but look at the dents in the wall and stairs the female giraffe had made trying to chase the screaming people down the stairs, and realize that she could probably get herself beheaded for ruining the castle of Akasuna no Sasori.

"I didn't mean for her to go down, though!" the pink-haired kit tried to explain. "I tried to make her go the other way. There's another staircase, a little ways down the hall, and it's a lot bigger and Shimmer could have gone through that one a lot easier but she just…she just went all by herself. Hey, where's Ino and Kiba? I thought they were behind us with Boomer."

"Sakura, they went up some stairs a long time ago. And who kn-knows where the other two bears are!"

As though Hinata speaking was some kind of cue, Shimmer's neck craned backwards until her head was nearly touching her spine and she slipped under the doorway and into the hallway beyond. ("She's gonna break her neck doing that!" Sakura gasped in horror.) Immediately after, Shimmer lay down and leaned her neck against the wall as though she had no energy left in her great, lanky body. In that same doorway where the female giraffe's legs had been flailing, the prince appeared. His curled tail, half-closed eyes and black nightclothes and overall unhappy air did not make Sakura want to walk down the stairs and explain to him what was going on.

He lifted his hand slowly, threatening, black-painted claws making Sakura think even more that she should really get out of there. She grasped her violet-haired friend and did just that, taking off as fast as her legs could take her in a burst of adrenaline.

The pink-haired kit was a curious object in the matter of Sasori's puppetry ability, in that he could _sometimes _use the gift to move her however he wanted and sometimes he couldn't. There was no rhyme or reason to this, and Sakura was very unwilling to stay and find out if this was one of the times where she would find she couldn't move a muscle because of him.

She and her friends had been up all night and the exhaustion was getting to all the children. Their bodies weren't used to running all day and all night as well. But despite the want for sleep that had been plaguing them for several hours now, Sakura found no problem in running full speed down the grand castle hallway and sharpening her senses to listen for any prince who might appear from around the corner and catch her.

Waiting for their parents to go to sleep, sneaking out to the Stables and borrowing some horses, riding to a strange town miles away from home, borrowing some circus animals and sneaking said circus animals into a walled city and a castle and leading them around and rewarding the animals for frightening the poor castle residents really could tire out your average eight or nine-year-old. Sakura's burst of speed lasted for about three hallways and then she found that dragging Hinata around was extremely tiring.

"We'll just…take a break here for…ten seconds, okay?" Sakura panted. Her friend, much more tired than she, didn't even nod. Sakura added for her, "Yeah, yeah, okay. Kiba and Ino will have to pass us soon anyway…"

The two felis kits sat down against a wall, nearly knocking down a glass vase of some rare and gorgeous plants. They panted for several minutes, eyes closed, almost falling asleep though they were still wearing the clothes they'd worn yesterday (or many hours ago, if you look at it that way). When she felt Hinata's soft tail poking at her leg, Sakura looked up to see the prince and three unfamiliar people looking down at her, all in their nightclothes, only one of them looking irritated at all. The prince, the redheaded woman, and the black-haired felis man all were smiling and their tails were sweeping the ground, a sort of loving, appreciative felis gesture. Sakura didn't know what a sweet sight they made: two young, sleepy kits staring up innocently at their elders, knowing that they were in trouble.

Sakura knew something was going on just by looking in the prince's eyes. Her cute expression of tiredness didn't change, but her mind was awhirl with questions she hadn't thought of before. Would he cut off her tail for embarrassing him like this? Would he banish Ino, Kiba and Hinata, too? Would he kill one of her horses just for punishment?

She _almost _said, "Please don't kill me okay?" but was barely able to keep herself from doing so.

She tried to put on an expression of "I-know-what-you're-up-to" when the prince bent down to pick her up, but she wasn't sure if she succeeded. His purring was excessively loud; any human within twenty feet of them could surely hear it. This made the redheaded woman and the black-haired man curl their feline tails in what looked like delight.

Sakura expected him to rip her ears off any second. She set one hand on his shoulder and the other on his chest, the same way she would arrange herself when anyone picked her up and carried her. This would make it seem, she hoped, that she _wasn't _expecting him to rip her ears off. She heard the redheaded woman make an silent exclamation something like, "Ohhh, she's cute, Majesty!"

What happened next was most unexpected. Our devious kit found herself dumbstruck for once when the prince darted out a velvet tongue gave her a tender lick on her left cheek, an experience which was so unfamiliar Sakura's mind could not register it. This was followed by a nuzzle on her soft skin, of the same affectionate nature. This made the kit close one eye for fear of the prince poking it out, and the lovability of the scene was enhanced still by her adorable look.

You readers of this tale may remember I, the narrator, mentioning that a lick on a felis's feline ears is an ultimate sign of affection. I called it _an _ultimate sign for a reason, and that reason is: a lick on the cheek or the lips is _the _ultimate sign of affection.

Sakura, unwise in such things, did not know the message this action conveyed to the three adults standing by, and could not bring herself to do anything but stare at the intricately-patterned floor.

The three adults standing by _did _understand the message conveyed by Sasori's actions. Old Baki, advisor to the Noriker king and queen, nodded respectfully and tried to keep his smile small and civil. Queen Kushina and the black-haired felis man, Obito Uchiha, did not. Kushina and Obito looked near insane in their grins.

"You will not be in trouble if you promise me you'll never do something like this again," Sasori warned. The kit nodded dumbly, her ears pointing downward a bit. "Good." Another lick. "I don't think you know how much I would hurt if you were the victim of a bear's claws. If you were killed, I would be also."

He turned to Hinata, who'd watched the event with wide, shocked eyes. "Come, child. Let's find your other friends, hmm? I'll take you home. I assume you've been up all night bringing these wild animals into my castle." Hinata nodded, ears pinned to her skull in shame and fear and confusion, and followed after the prince as he made his way away. Kushina, Baki, and Obito stared admiringly after him.

A few minutes later, on the second story of the castle, Sasori, Hinata and Sakura found Kiba and Ino following sullenly after Anko and Tenten. They all looked worn, exhausted and unhappy, but Kiba and Ino were only _too_ happy to explain exactly what had gone on that night, as Hinata and Sakura were much too tired and dumbstruck to talk.

The prince's brown eyes showed something that may have been akin to shock when Ino got to the part about "borrowing" some circus animals, animals who could have very well killed them if treated wrongly, but looked most concerned when he learned that the children had snuck outside the city and ridden horses at least twenty-five miles to a strange town in the middle of the night. This may have been some hidden embarrassment at the fact that these children, not even ten years old, could do such things and get away with them without him knowing a thing until it was too late.

"Because of you, security will be tightened everywhere in my city." Sasori said flatly as they exited the castle and walked the sleeping streets of Suna. "Nothing like this will ever happen again. If it does, you all will be properly punished."

The children were silent as they walked down the streets and blinked as the sun just began to rise and glare at them through a pathetically thin veil of clouds. The first door to be knocked upon was the Hyuuga house. Hiashi Hyuuga, Hinata's father, was to say the least extremely surprised to see the prince of the continent in his nightclothes standing on his doorstep, backed by a group of children at six in the morning, one of which was his daughter.

All was explained, and Hiashi was ordered by Sasori not to punish his daughter ("You must save the punishment for when they try a stunt like this again, Hiashi."). Ino was returned home and then Kiba. None of the parents had known their children had left in the night, and were completely shocked at what they heard, and would doubtlessly gossip about for months. At about six thirty in the morning, Sakura was still being held by the prince. The guards, who had only just come to their post at the Suna gate a few minutes ago, also had the events explained to them and opened the doors for them, eager and slightly flabbergasted.

Sakura's home was not yet in view when Sasori asked, "Will your mother be awake at this time?" She shook her pink head. "No. Not for another hour. Maybe more." Her tone suggested she was close to falling asleep. Even her wild, lively eyes had darkened with sleepiness.

"Then when she wakes up, tell her that she is not to discipline you. If she does, I will discipline _her. _And be sure to give her the reason." Sakura stuck out her tongue, making sure he didn't see. "Yeah, yeah, so you can punish me next time. Fine."

As you may guess, Sakura's earlier promise not to try any more stunts like this was a complete lie. She had planned many more schemes, and knew that as she got older these schemes would only get more and more complex and devious, so much so that there'd be no evidence she'd done a thing, but everyone would _know _she had done it out of obviousness. For things like this the prince could banish her but not do anything along the lines of imprison or behead her like a criminal who had obvious evidence against them.

The kit knew as she fell more and more into sleep on Sasori's shoulder that things would only get more interesting as she grew up. Of course, she didn't know that the prince thought the same.

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Well wasn't that unrealistic. Eight and nine-year-old sneaking out of a walled city, stealing horses from a guarded stable, riding god knows how many miels away to steal circus animals, taking them back, somehow sneaking these circus animals into the walled city, into a freaking castle, and having these animals act aggressive and rabid on command. It's not fanfiction for nothing, guys. Go and fine some of those "Naruto ninjas are beer-guzzling college students" fanfictions. They're even less believable than this.

I was sort of hoping that the "cute" ending would distract some people from the fact that it's so unrealistic. Well, Sakura's a virgin birth, devious and clever as the devil's right hand, Kiba's knows the city so well he's like Dodger from that "Oliver" cat movie and can find ways _under _the city, and...well, can't you just enjoy it? Oh, also, Obito Uchiha has no significance in the story. I just wanted to give the "black-haired felis man" a name, so there he is. I hoped you enjoyed the read. (Oh, for a boredom cure, see how many horse references you can find in the last two chapters. There's at least three.)

Ta...Storm


	5. V

Usually I say something remotely personal before starting a chapter of one of my stories. Okay, here's one: if you've read my profile, you'll know I'm trying to publish a book. It's a long and complicated process and involves getting an agent and 30-page proposals and it's generally a longer and more evil process than you can guess. At the same time I look at some of the novels at bookstores and laugh at the storylines and wonder what fishbrained publishing company agreed to sell this junk. It really irritates me that I can barely get started and then there's Shittiest Novel Ever there on the bookshelf for twelve ninety-nine.

But besides that and the fact that at the end of May my freshman year will end (oh so sad, I'm going to miss my hilarious biology teacher) I have no news. So here's the next chapter, with a newly incorporated theme: music lyrics at the top to represent something you'll have to guess. Is it philosophical and deep in the story or plain obvious within it? Guess.

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_Place a name upon the night  
One to set your heart alight  
And to make the darkness bright  
Paint the sky with stars._

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March 31th, 6:39 PM

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Ino was fuming. "Well, so what if you turned thirteen a couple days ago? I'm fourteen! I'll be _fifteen _in September! And Kiba's gonna be fourteen in July! Hinata, you'll be fourteen this December, right?"

"Why is it a contest now?" Sakura asked with slight irritation. "You're the oldest out of the four of us and Hinata's youngest, so what?"

"I'm wiser! You should have listened to me but _no! _Thirteen-year-old Sakura has to go sneaking off at night into the woods surrounding Suna's fields, and of course she finds this super-rare gemstone and she doesn't get lost or attacked by bandits or anything!"

"I've been sneaking out at night my whole life. I can't help it if I know how to do it. And I gave that 'super-rare' gemstone to you."

"Well you don't have to go get me stuff! I can do great things without your thirteen-year-old help! Now I'm going back to Suna to see Ami and I hope the guards shut the city gates on your guys! Good-_bye!_"

So Ino, now fourteen years old, stomped away from Sakura's home. Her blonde hair had been grown out and she had nearly copied the hairstyle of the prince's best friend, Iwa no Deidara, having one bang over her eye and the rest of it in a high ponytail. She wore an expensive violet dress, not at all suitable for playing around like a child. She walked away with snobby dignity on gem-studded slippers down Suna's great, grassy hills to the walled city, a mile or so away on the horizon.

The other three children of the mischievous coven were Hinata, Sakura and Kiba, and were still just that, a mischievous coven. Sakura's hair was still cropped short around her shoulders and her eyes were as crafty and bright as ever. As always she wore athletic clothes suitable for running and climbing over a body frame that was still small and lithe, and as always her felis ears and tail were pink.

Kiba also had hardly changed. Still he was a brown-eared-and-tailed felis boy, still he tattooed his cheeks with red fang-marks weekly, and still he knew every inch and then some of the royal city of Suna. The only difference one would see in him from his nine-year-old self three or so years ago was the fact that he'd become taller and lankier, and slightly more muscled.

The only noticeable change in Hinata was that her hair had grown out some and that she was wearing clothes that showed some amount of skin. I mean this not suggestively at all, reader, no no! Hinata had always been shy in the extremes; even wearing a shirt with short sleeves was something she considered attention-grabbing (people could comment on her skin coloring and, oh the horror, force her to talk about it, to _speak._) and now she wore such average clothes without much worry, though almost always around her friends.

Ino was the one who had undergone the most change throughout the first stages of puberty. As though flaunting her growing breasts to any male near her age wasn't enough, several months ago she had become friends with a girl who had just moved to Suna at the time: Ami.

The three children still loyal the the "mischievous coven" shook their heads and wondered what had happened to fun-loving and chatty Ino. She was no longer fun-loving; she was contemptuous of everything Kiba, Hinata and Sakura did that involved dirtying one's clothes or sweating or any general outdoor activity. She was no longer chatty, to them, at least. She was chatty with Ami all the time, speaking of the best hot spring spas and sewing kits and attractive young men, felis human and half-breed. No man was spared.

Even Kiba had been able to work out that Ino's severing their friendship ties was mostly based on her own jealously. She was jealous that Kiba was handsome and would pay no mind to her beauty, and would not act like a gentleman towards her like she wanted. She was jealous that Hinata had a delicate body given to her by nature and though the boys paid more attention to Ino, it was Hinata's feminine body frame that Ino so coveted, and had to work desperately to have. Ino was jealous that the prince loved Sakura and not her. Ino was jealous that Sakura was blossoming into a striking, strong young female, and a fantastic violinist as well, and Ino had no way to rise above that.

The three remaining of the group knew it without ever saying it to each other. Ino was no longer one of them. She was no longer a friend. So, again without ever saying it to each other, they knew that should Ino ever want to join them again, she would not be allowed.

They were all staring off over the hills in the direction of the city of Suna, their eyes dark and disapproving of the path Ino was taking. The path away from them, away from happiness and friendship. Shizune rode up to them, bareback on Camille, the white mountain pony. She saw the preteens staring out in Suna's direction, looking drugged and unhappy, and voiced this opinion by saying, "You kids look _drugged! _Are you allright? Feeling sick?" This could be fixed easily if it were true, as Shizune and Tsunade were wonderful doctors.

"No." Hinata's reply was flat and nearly uncaring. Shizune gaped at the shy child, surprised she could even be capable of putting such a tone into her voice. "You know, Ino's not our friend anymore." The other two children didn't nod or give any agreement, but Shizune knew this was in fact one of their ways of agreeing.

"Ino Yamanaka? But you four always did things together…and from what I remember, wasn't it her idea to bring that circus giraffe to the castle three years ago? And when you went swimming at the lake near Friesian last summer, you rescued her when she fell off the boat. You've done…so much…together…"

Hinata, Kiba and Sakura were staring off into the darkening sunset sky. Shizune wondered if they were even listening. "Are you absolutely sure she's not your friend anymore?" Camille flicked her white ears as though she wondered this question as well.

"We're sure." Sakura said, with not even a flick of her skinny felis tail. "She's friends with Ami now. They make dresses and gown and slippers at Ami's parents' shop. She's not interested in playing with us anymore." All this was stated as fact. There was no remorse in the young violinist's voice.

The mood of the conversation had still become sour, and the gloomy, cloudy weather did little to warm the spring night. "Well if you all aren't her friends anymore, at least don't make her feel bad. She may just be jealous of you and you shouldn't flaunt."

Kiba nodded. "Yeah, we planned to ignore her anyway. If she tries to flaunt around _us, _though…well, we've got better things to do than talk to her anyway." Sakura giggled a little at this. The boy's brown felis ears pointed forward suddenly. "Oh, _dang! _The Suna gates close at sunset! See you tomorrow, Sakura, me n' Hinata gotta run! Bye-bye, Shizune!"

With this, he grabbed his purple-haired friend's hand, and with felis speed, easily twice that of a running human, they were racing over the green hills towards the walled city of Suna.

"Have you eaten dinner yet, Sakura?" Shizune asked. Her niece shook her head. "No. I'll cook something tonight. I need some energy to practice my violin some more. Asuma and Kurenai told me to, anyway."

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July 20th, 9:32 PM

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Almost four months had passed since Ino had unofficially stopped being friends with Sakura, Hinata and Kiba. Several times during those months Ino and Ami had, as suspected, tried to taunt the three younger felis. Ami and Ino were some months older than all three of them, and this they flaunted, saying their age made them smarter, better, prettier, among other things.

They taunted Kiba for being a "ruffian" and a "street cat" because in certain ways he certainly could be those things, and even though Ino and Ami admired his looks, they taunted him for acting so roguish. Hinata was called a hussy and an ugly little mouse more than once because of her pretty looks. Sakura was called the prince's slave because she spoke to him personally more than anyone, and once or twice a "demoness" because of her unnatural hair and eye colors.

(Why yes, the three younger children did shake their heads and wonder about where Ino picked up her new vocabulary words, if you were wondering.)

But of course, the young felis were proud and did not take Ino and Ami's insults lightly. After the first week or so of being taunted and watching the two girls walk around in colorfully inappropriate clothes, they filled a few rubber balloons with a mixture of mud and fish paste, used Kiba's knowledge to get them to a rooftop, and dropped these balloons on the two girls. They made sure that, not even a minute after the girls began screaming in horror, the group of three was seen on the other side of the city, far from where the chaos was going on. No one knew they could use rooftops to get quickly from one point to another, so they couldn't be possibly connected to the crime.

But of course, most everyone knew they'd somehow done it anyway. Several more incidents like this occurred—the three younger felis being taunted by the two older felis girls, said older felis girls being bombarded by some humorous missile of sorts or a string of unlucky events, and the three younger felis being nowhere near the scene of the crime and thusly not even applicable as witnesses.

Four months of this went on. _Then _the prince of Fell called his kit to see him personally. Kiba and Hinata giggled and pointed at her, playfully mocking her, as she ignored the summons by hiding.

But by the time Sakura did that, she'd become good friends with Iwa no Deidara (he sometimes had a hand in their schemes and was a child at heart). He was a felis, a sort with no ears but a feline tail, and despite his uncanny knowledge of politics and war, he disliked these things and was a child at heart. For this reason he got along fantastically with Sakura and her devious, adventurous friends.

She had been hiding pathetically under her bed in her room. Since the room was filled entirely with her scent it wasn't scent that told Deidara where she was hiding, but simple lack of hiding places in the room. With Deidara's tail twined with hers the whole way and with her ears drooping in distaste the whole way, Sakura was escorted on horseback into the city and into the castle.

Deidara didn't leave her alone until they'd turned the corner to the hallway that held the prince's room, and by that time, surely he could hear them there. Sullenly she made her way to his door, carved expertly from mahogany with a silver knob, and opened it.

The only time Sakura had seen the fireplace on the west wall lit was roughly a month ago, when she'd stolen into the room to retrieve some ancient cookbook for Tenten, who needed it desperately for some visiting friends of some castle servant or other, who were said to be some sort of royalty. Sakura had been glad to help Tenten, who was her favorite human and whose lazy calmness still puzzled and amused her.

But that was definitely beside the point. The point was that the fireplace was lit again to warm the unnaturally cold July night and Sasori was in the room, a combination of events she'd never seen. She stored this to memory quickly and took in the prince's image on his bed: sitting up against half a dozen maroon pillows with his eyes closed, his tail unmoving and his breathing calm, he appeared of all things in the world, asleep.

'_Maybe I can just move quietly…leave the door open, tiptoe out of here…take Foxtrot, ride through one of the two mountain passes and hide out in—"_

"If you want the heat to escape then leave the door open. If not, close it."

'_Dammit.' _Sakura made sure that she only cursed to herself or in front of Kiba and Hinata. Aloud, she said, "Okay," and closed the door. If she was really, really lucky, then the heat of the fireplace would fill the entire room and make him drowsy enough to fall asleep out of nowhere and she could escape this meeting.

"Come here." His tail patted a spot on the bed just next to him.

It was no surprise to the young felis that he would have her sit near him. It seemed to her that every time they got a chance to meet, Sasori would involve some amount of closeness. She didn't understand why simply sitting across from each other and reading a book or star-gazing, her idea of a nice evening spent with Sasori, wasn't enough.

She didn't understand why he so enjoyed holding her or being next to her, or rubbing her ears or having their tails twined. She did understand why she never minded those things, though: he was very good at them, plain and simple. Sasori rubbing her ears or holding her felt good, inside and out. But she'd bow down to Ino and Ami before admitting this.

Why no, my absent-minded reader, Sakura never did research or ask about the meaning of being "the prince's kit." Of course, she would be his mate and marry him after some amount of years, and of course, she would be the queen of Fell and the second-most powerful person in the world, and of _course _she assumed that one day she'd be expected to have a kit for him, and was fully prepared to say that adoption was her preferred choice.

She still did not know how the business of making a kit went. It was was slightly rare for a female her age in these times not to know such things, but she guessed that even Hinata, her junior, knew how it happened, and was determined to find out how.

But, per her nature, the questions that plagued her most were the ones she kept the herself. She had considered asking Hinata how kit-making happened, but declined, seeing how uncomfortable the girl got when anyone mentioned something along its lines. So she planned to, sometime soon, go to a faraway tavern in disguise and ask some stranger how it happened. Or maybe she'd disguise herself and anonymously rent a book on the subject. Either way was equally easy.

Why, did I go off-subject? No, Bundt-cake-for-brain, I did not. All the above paragraphs can amass to one thing, if you'd been smart enough to put them all together. Sakura made her way to Sasori's bed slowly and nervously, not because she felt it was inappropriate, but because she was afraid of having her ears ripped off for punishment of Ino and Ami's demise.

Why she still thought Sasori would even think of ripping her ears when he so deeply cared for her is something we'll never know and I won't even try to figure out for you.

As she expected, as soon as she was close enough, when she sat next to him with her back against the mound of pillows, Sasori's tail curled around her hand. She in turn wrapped her fingers around it without hesitation. The firelight had made it particularly warm, and its fur was still at velvety-soft as ever. Her own tail lay across his left leg.

"You're here for an obvious reason." Sasori began. Sakura found it a little hard to take him seriously when he was sitting up against a pile of pillows and looking very much asleep. But she knew better now than to think he really was anything close to sleep. "Your friend the Yamanaka daughter, and her friend as well, have been the victims of some strange undertakings. These undertakings are ridiculous and horrible for two young girls, and you and your own friends are never near the scene when it happens. You are obviously responsible."

"Can you prove that?" she countered daringly. He put one hand atop her head and tapped his index finger on her forehead, then said, "My proof is that I know you would do this. There's no question, no one else who would do more to the Yamanaka girl than ignore her. My guess is that she irritates you. She irritates you once or twice and you stuff her pillow with venomous snakes."

"That was Kiba's idea! And I agreed to help him do it 'cause she and Ami were making fun of _you. _They called you all kinds of funky names I'd only heard Tsunade say before."

It may have been the felis child's imagination. It may not have. Either way, it seemed that Sasori's tail twitched. (Any "funky names" Tsunade said were sure to be suitable only for a brothel, tavern or group of pirates.)

"Yet you agreed. You could have declined."

"You wanted me to _decline _with how mean they were being to you? If they weren't so freakin' spineless, they would say those things to your face when you're out walking in the city." Sasori's hand had left the top of her head and was now lazily combing a silky strand of pink hair. Sakura tried to ignore the gesture and keep her ears from pinning to her skull in embarrassment. She went on a bit more. "But when you do that, they stalk you and walk around in uniforms like brothel girls to try and get your attention. They've told me so. Loudly."

The prince's tail pulled her small hand towards his and they linked together, fingers lacing. Sakura tried to ignore that movement when he said, "I didn't summon you here for you to complain about those two. I summoned you here to tell you what I'm going to do about it."

Sakura glanced away at the opposite wall, the wall made up entirely of a huge bookshelf, cut at the bottom with the great fireplace. She said, "I could…spend a week in a dungeon or something…"

"No, my kit." He moved her a little closer, a little too quickly, for that suggestion was unthinkable, and it was ridiculous of her to even suggest he do that. "I will tell the girls' parents that if their daughters don't stop donning inappropriate clothes and strolling around the city in them, I will take their attitude to heart and send them to a brothel."

Now, Sakura had only a faint idea of what a brothel was—"a place where girls wear improper clothes get torture and stuff done to them"—and in her mind, sending Ino and Ami to a brothel was a promise of certain death. And she didn't want the girls dead. It would mean there would be no targets for the pranks she and her friends set off.

"Isn't that sort of…er, extreme?" she looked up at him, blinking questioningly. The prince looked down and found his evening was brightened by his kit's vivid, innocent eyes. Eyes he and ever resident of the city found difficult to resist. "It is extreme. But it will have the situation sorted out very quickly. My city will be a better place without those two acting up and following me around."

One of her eyebrows went up. "You noticed them?" The prince gave a sardonic huffing sound. "I found it hard to ignore them. Dancing around and screaming at people to get attention. They'll become whores that way. Their parents are modest and kind and were cursed with those undesirable girls for daughters. I pity them."

Of course, the pink-haired felis had to touch on the obvious subject. "So this means I'm off the hook for giving them trouble?" If the prince's feline purring wasn't answer enough, the verbal one definitely was.

"Yes. Every time you and your two friends let some horror loose on those girls all of Suna got a few hours of peace…" After the word "yes," he lifted one hand, nails painted black like always, and curled four fingers; one of the thicker books from the bottom shelf floated up towards them seemingly of its own will. This was Sasori's puppetry in actuality.

The book turned to one side to reveal the age-worn cover. War and Peace. Sakura stared with wide eyes and her tail twitched like a housecat preparing to pounce on a ball of yarn. "I remember when you were younger you saw a copy of this in my library and asked if you might borrow it. Now I think you're intelligent enough to understand a decent amount."

She glanced at him, irritated, twitching one feline ear with that very emotion. "Nice choice of words." she grumbled. But with more dignity, she added, "You sure a thirteen-year-old could understand it?"

"You're going to read it even if I say no." Sakura curled her pink tail proudly at that. "Yeah, but I need to have some kind of estimate of how totally lost I'll be."

"You asked me for this first when you were seven. How lost would you have been then?"

"I would have stared and read for days till I understood it. Now, how tough is it?"

"Very."

"Did you read it before?"

"I've read every book on this shelf thrice. I was nearly eleven when I first read this one."

She snapped her head in his direction to stare with unhidden shock, but the prince only looked tiredly at the floating book. "Y-You…Eleven? Was that because princes had to know famous books like this, or tutors those days were evil like that?"

Sasori's brown eyes moved around the room pensively. "…Both." The book was gently dropped into Sakura's little, waiting hands. She still was staring. "No age comment." she said, smiling. This caught Sasori's attention—she mocked him for his "old" age every other encounter they shared—but the following embrace did as well.

For Sakura, hugs were not given or taken easily, but with one hand holding War and Peace and the other arm pulling Sasori's torso so close it could have been considered strangling, this was easily the best hug she'd ever given. She tried to nuzzle him, a common felis gesture of affection, and hoped his attention would be distracted by her saying, "I've been trying to find a copy of this book since last year but it's so rare. Thank you. Even if the story bores me to death I know I'll get something out of it."

The prince was purring again, enough to vibrate even the pillows behind him. The hug was completed when Sasori joined it, one arm protectively around the younger felis's back. Here with him, in his own room, she was perfectly safe, and the prince closed his eyes in a sense of calmness he hadn't felt in many weeks.

"Then begin reading it…" he said after the volume of his purring had gone down enough to allow speech. Sakura asked, confused, "Hm? Here?"

"Yes." He licked the back of Sakura's felis ear briefly and then lay down flat as possible on the huge, puffy pillows. Sitting up, she stared down at him. "You're going to sleep?" He purred an affirmation. "Were this an ordinary night, I wouldn't have gotten to bed for another three or four hours. I can't remember the last time I got a decent amount of sleep."

Sakura opened the old book carefully to the copyright page, a page she always looked at out of habit. But her eyes were on the prince still. "Tsunade and Shizune…?"

"They were already informed that you may or may not sleep here tonight."

The young female's vivid eyes went wide. "Why would I sleep here? Not to insult you or anything, your room is huge and awesome but it seems sort of strange for me to—"

"It is completely natural for you to be here with me." That sentence, so factual and calm and yet still gentle, ended it.

After another moment or two, it occurred to Sakura that some people fell asleep reading. She enjoyed reading always, as it furthered her intellect in all kinds of ways, but always remembered going to sleep _before_ she got too tired to see the words in front of her eyes. She wondered if she truly would fall asleep reading.

"But what if some advisor comes in here wanting to get you for something? A political or national thing?" Sasori's mouth curved upward into a handsome smirk. "They wouldn't dare disturb me with you here." Understanding that she was a ticket to a good night's sleep, Sakura huffed in mock indignation and dismissed the notion, believing that was the only reason the prince wanted her there.

As it turned out, Sakura fell asleep not too far into the gigantic novel, sometime after Prince Andrei Bolkonsky was introduced. Sasori was asleep before she was, but I'm sure we all know he would've enjoyed the fact that his kit was safely with him for the night.

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At the Information Vault

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Sakura received the ancient novel on the night of July 20th. After six days—during which Kiba turned fourteen—she'd finished it, much to the astonishment and mild amusement of everyone who knew her, which was nearly the entire city of Suna.

This _was _the charming and musically-inclined young girl with bloody flutes and a mammoth tusk sitting in her room. To some, it didn't come as much of a surprise that she read such a lengthy book in such a short time. What really came as a surprise was that when anyone asked her if she'd liked the book, she was unable to answer, making confused and thoughtful faces until the the questioner told her to run along.

Less than two hours after reading the last page, she'd found the prince pacing his city, deep in thought, and gave him back his copy of War and Peace. Now, at this point, after some two or three years of tutoring in using the violin, Sasori had not once heard her play (though Asuma and Kurenai assured him every other day he would never hear a more extraordinary player.). This was apparently because Sakura wanted to become a competent player and not make a fool of herself in front of the prince. She handed the book back and said that she was so pleased with it, and with him for allowing her to borrow it, that if he would like, he may come to her lessons and listen to her practice.

Asuma and Kurenai almost always took Sakura to a winding river just outside Suna's wall to practice, because the area was quiet and calm and not even the bubbling of the current could disturb one in that environment. Here, Sasori found the tutors and their student, and even Hinata, who was a regular viewer of Sakura's lessons, sitting on the ground, ready and waiting for him. He sat near enough to Sakura, naturally.

The married tutors didn't even try to hide their smiles when his tail wound craftily under her arm and flicked her under the chin. Sakura stuck her tongue out at him in mild irritation and moved her violin—the very same Versace the prince had given her for her eighth birthday—to the other arm. This was a shock to no one, as Sakura was ambidextrous, equally exceptional with both left and right hands, and switched her favored hand every few days.

So, holding her violin in her right hand and the bow in her left, the pink-haired felis chose to play "Stallion on the Sunbeam," a recent song from southern Caspia. One who is not musically inclined will find it hard to understand the utter perfection and emotion with which Sakura played. It seemed impossible for her to play a single note off-key or sweep over the strings incorrectly with the bow. Feline tails curled with delight.

Meanwhile, , Ino and Ami stood with their heads out the window of Ami's parents' clothing shop in Suna, which was three stories high, just high enough to look over the city wall and straight at the musical scene many yards beyond. They seethed with envy, for not even they could not ignore that the music the younger felis created was phenomenal, but mostly they could not ignore the attention the prince was giving her for it.

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April 16th, 8:22 PM (About 10 months forward in time)

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The pranks of the three devious felis could not be completely held down. There were only a select few who thought the prince couldn't control his kit (who was still adorably small enough to be called a kit, some playfully teased her) but most laughed and enjoyed her and her friends' antics, as there was usually a reason behind them. It didn't matter that they were awfully old for such things. These were not average young felis children and what they did was not usually childish anyway.

When Ino and Ami went to the Stables, the huge buildings outside the city where the residents kept their horses, most everyone guessed it was Hinata who left Toshiro's stall unlocked. Most everyone guessed that, when the two girls tried to braid the small stallion's mane and he neighed with rage at the strangers and chased them out of the Stables, Hinata had been the one to blame.

When Suna celebrated its annual summer festival and the largest of the firecrackers were stolen, most everyone knew it was Kiba who nabbed them and added an extra ingredient to their mix before putting him back. His crude and creative style showed when the city dwellers set off those largest fireworks and saw the sparkling shape of a green, howling dog lighting up the night sky, quite alike in shape to Kiba's family dog, Akamaru.

When Sakura had first discovered that she, like almost all felis, had a strange ability that she could use at will. Hers was ridiculous strength. Hinata had walked out of Suna's gates and over the grassy hills to Sakura's cottage in the lonely fields and was helping her groom the horses when Ami came sauntering up to the corral fence. The purple-haired maiden had been about to comment on Sakura' filthy boots when the younger girl spontaneously put her hands round Camille's belly, picked up the horse and tossed her at Ami. Camille, just as surprised as Sakura at the sudden occurence, landed a good five feet from the fence but Ami ran screaming anyway.

Sakura was thinking about situations like these. Sakura, age fourteen, sat with her legs crossed on the fence of her family's corral.

The five horses grazed at various points outside the corral in the great field surrounding the city of Suna. Sakura could only spot Maraconn and the other horses were probably another mile or two away, and would come back whenever their bellies were full of grass. So this gave the young girl a chance to sit on the fence, one of her favorite thinking spots, and do just that: think.

A certain situation had come up recently and it threatened to take away what childhood she had left. She knew, had known for years, that fourteen was only a few years shy of the marrying age. Sakura made sure to keep a carefree front that made others think she had hardly a care in the world. This front deceived many, sometimes even her own mother.

It was hard to keep this front when she was thinking so pensively like this. Kiba and Hinata were still her best friends, Ino and Ami were still targets of cruelly amusing and chaotic pranks, Sasori still used his free time to visit her and incorporate some fond form of petting or nuzzling, and she still wandered inside the royal castle and mingled with the staff there. (Deidara was her favorite staff member, tied with Tenten.)

But if she chose to agree to this new choice her violin tutors had presented her with… It wasn't hard to imagine—nothing for Sakura was; her imagination was as vast as her intellect—but she preferred not to imagine it. For six years now, give or take some months, Asuma and Kurenai Sarutobi had resided in Suna, just for the purpose of teaching her to play the violin. She owed them something for all that effort, for six years of time she knew they could spend doing whatever they wanted. (Surely she wasn't all that fun to teach, she thought.)

But before that, they'd taught on and lived in the northwestern coast of the nearest continent, Konik, a whole ocean away from the continent of Fell. It was an area called Twilight Wood, because the forests in that area were said to be more lush and beautiful than twilight time, added in with the majestic cliffs and seashores, quaint villages and charming local music, it was a fantastic place. It was the very best place to learn any kind of music because music of all kinds could be heard in the festivals there, for it was a favorite place for foreigners to mingle.

There in Twilight Wood, a continent away from Sasori, Sakura could learn to play the violin _better _than she could learn in Suna. That was Asuma and Kurenai's proposal to her: that she go with them to Twilight Wood for two or three years, practice and study there, and return to Suna then, a fully-grown young woman whose skill with the violin was unchallenged.

"I don't wanna leeeaave…" Sakura droned in a childish tone she used only when no one was around to hear. "Gahh…mmm…I wonder if…I'll cry?" She was saying this only to distract herself from the inevitable.

The prince would have to be told sometime soon. Summer was coming in another month or two. If she were to go, she would have to journey for two weeks, across half of Fell to get to the east coast, and take a ship across the ocean to the northwestern coast, to Twilight Wood, which would take another two weeks. And summer, storm season, was not a good time to be on a ship in the middle of the ocean.

Sakura was going to go. Of this she was almost sure. How she was going to explain it to the prince, who despised it when he couldn't have his tail comfortably around her, she wasn't sure. She wasn't quite sure if he'd _let _her go. And then there was Hinata, Kiba, Shizune and Tsunade to tell…and many of the Suna residents and she couldn't leave without saying goodbye to her horses!

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April 16th, 8:42 PM (twenty minutes later)

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—_Heartwood, the yearling palomino steed of Sir Yamato Tenzou, who has been unfortunate enough to come down with black fever. As is common knowledge, black fever is almost always fatal to humans, felis and half-breeds but no more serious than a minor cough to most animals. Heartwood is, unfortunately, not a creature who falls under the categorization of "most animals" and thusly needs the determined dose of nine teaspoons, which is not available in Sir Yamato's township, and must be sent from Suna's stores by way of a vial carried by messenger bird—_

A rustle at his window disrupted our enjoyably handsome prince from his reading, which he didn't mind because catering to the problems of every town leader that lived on his continent was not very fun.

The windows in the prince's personal chamber were a little ridiculous in their height, but not nearly as much as the ballroom, which had windows nearly three stories high paned with glass that was nine thousand years old. Point being, my friends, Sakura was a small young felis, and even though the window was very high but not too wide, she still didn't take up that much space. All the same, wouldn't you be surprised if a felis girl suddenly stood in your window, when the only tree from which she could jump was two stories below and that was impossible so she seemed to just teleport herself there? The prince was not surprised.

No, he was quite happy. This, one could tell from the volume of his purring, loud even for a felis, and the tenderness of his eyes, the expression he saved for his kit and his kit only. This fond behavior didn't stop even when he noticed the young girl's pose as she hopped off the window and walked towards him: her hands guiltily behind her back, eyes at her boots, pink felis ears slightly drooping and tail limp. Even her white athletic tunic appeared greyish and gloomy.

At first, neither of them said anything. Sasori was perfectly content to pull the young felis into a mostly platonic embrace and Sakura was perfectly content to let him. Whatever unhappy news he knew she was doubtlessly carrying could wait a few minutes.

Sakura waited a good thirty seconds before reminding herself it would be better for everyone if she got straight to the point as fast as possible. "What would you say if I left Suna for a couple years?"

"I would say nothing. I would scour the continent with an army at my back before I said anything." And the young felis grinned, because that was something close to the truth, assuming she disappeared as though kidnapped, and wasn't leaving on a planned and safe trip. "I mean, if you knew I was leaving and I wanted to."

The way his rather warm tail wrapped around her hand suggested something like worry. Only Sakura would have noticed such a thing. "For what reason would you do that?" he asked.

"To go study music and sharpen my violin skills." He made a pondering sound that was mixed with the predictable disappointment, and stood there, resting his chin on the top of her head and letting her play with his tail. The silence conveyed the message he was pretending to think up.

"On the coast of Konik, at Twilight Wood." she added, and looked away at the wall when she felt the prince's quite disbelieving eyes on her. "I would come back sixteen years old…seventeen if I wanted to go the extra mile." Neither of them doubted that she wouldn't at least try to go this extra mile, if not two extra miles.

One movement of his hand and the puppetry ability had her looking up at him. Sakura's eyes had never lost their innocence or their slyness or their intelligence and now, with worry and genuine seriousness burning in them as well, Sasori could not look away if he had wanted to. "This hurts me greatly, Sakura…"

"I know. I want to do it because I'll come back never needing another day of practice, and I won't ever have to leave again. I could play just in the Suna amphitheatre, and not in any other city, or if I went to another place you could come with…me…"

A gentle hand caressing her pink felis ears forced the girl to trail off. Sakura's felis ears were, and always had been, incredibly sensitive. It took a considerable amount of effort for her not to pin her ears to her skull or blush at the sensation. "Please stay here tonight. Read if you like. I'd like a night of reminding myself how sensitive your ears are, so that I won't forget sometime in the next three years."

It was the next sentence that truly told Sasori that she would miss him as well. "Tomorrow, too? Asuma and Kurenai don't plan to leave for three days…"

And it was the next gesture that reminded Sakura for the umpteenth time that the prince would miss her too. One of the finest felis gestures of love: he licked her felis ear. "Of course."

Sasori was unfortunate enough to have sixty-one pages of letters, written by people throughout his continent, asking for his help or supplies from his stores which were near-endless or more horses to brighten to economy. Sakura was lucky enough to find a copy of _Gone With The Wind _to dive into once she found it on the back of the prince's bookcase.

She was second to fall asleep, but before this happened she endured a good hour of the older felis massaging her feline ears. Her head was turned slightly away from him, and most of the time he was reading his letters, so most of the time Sakura was sure he didn't see her blushing (and blushing for two different reasons as well). But when she was on page 49, Sasori must have seen her red cheeks and unsure and almost humorously frightened expression, found the sight adorable and not bothered to resist kissing her temple. The redness did not fade from the girl's cheeks for a good ten minutes.

When Iwa no Deidara opened the door about two hours later, still expecting Sasori to be awake and irritably reading documents, he got a good shock and a particularly wide smile seeing the prince and his kit dozing together. The blonde felis was about to close the door and leave when Sakura lifted her head and widened her green eyes pleadingly at her older friend, begging him to get her out of this situation.

The prince, after all, did have an arm, his tail and most of one leg protectively over her. She was no longer unknowledgeable in the ways of "kit-making" and now could recognize a position that was suggestive from one that was not, and this one definitely _was, _however much the prince didn't mean it that way when he fell asleep in such a pose_. _Deidara, of course, knew this and was happy to leave Sakura to deal with it.

(Also, there was that quick moment when the prince opened one distinctively dark brown eye and easily conveyed to his friend the message, "Get the fuck out." That helped Deidara get out of the room faster. Sasori was able to adjust and stretch his tired body accordingly and nuzzle his kit's blushing face before returning to slumber.)

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April 20th, 3:30 AM (very late at night or very very early depending on your personal views)

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Her horses had rubbed their noses on her until she smelled like a stable, and she swore gentle Camille shed a tear when she disappeared around the corner. Hinata and Tsunade had cried. Kiba and Shizune hadn't said much, but their strangling hugs and ear-rubs told Sakura just how much they would miss her, as though she hadn't already guessed. Sakura swore to write once a week once she got there, sending a letter to Tsunade and Shizune at her true home and one to Hinata's house in Suna, her "play home." Sasori, of course, would get his own letter, written in some special ink Sakura would tell him to pay for once she got back in a few years because she'd only bought it to appease his prince-ness.

Asuma and Kurenai suggested that they leave at a time around 3:30 in the morning, so that there would be no sad goodbyes and if someone wanted to give one they'd have to wake themselves up at an unusual and undesirable time, so hopefully no one would show up while they were packing their horses.

The horses, the three of them, were Asuma and Kurenai's. They were all century-old thoroughbred stallions, and had carried the felis couple and their musical tools for many years and lessons. Rhett and Fruit Bat were big, durable dark-brown stallions, and Valiance was just a tad smaller and leaner, and dappled grey. Sakura rode on Valiance, or, she was packing her things and preparing to, when she felt the breeze behind her.

No introductions needed. It was going to be short, sweet and memorable; that was their tacit agreement. Sakura turned and almost saw Sasori's mane of red hair, but he closed his arms around her little body before she had a chance to really see it. Sasori purred low this time, sorrowfully, meaningfully, and gently bit the tip of her ear as though in punishment for leaving. Both the girl's sensitive ears pinned to her skull at the feeling of being bitten and the feeling of loss, and she thought it would appease him if she let them do so this time.

A paragraph is all I can waste on that, I'm afraid. For the prince bit her ear one last time, whispered a gentle, "Goodbye, Sakura," and was gone. The night was moonless, starless and cloudy, and even Sakura's felis nightvision couldn't catch Sasori's fleeing form, so it left her thinking that he hadn't fled and was perhaps nearby, and was watching her ride off.

Whether he was or wasn't, Sakura felt the tingling in her ears from the bite for several hours, even when she, Asuma and Kurenai arrived at a train station fifty miles away around mid-morning in the town of Shetland. Even when Valiance, Fruit Bat and Rhett were loaded into the horse cabin and she and her violin teachers found a comfortable sleeping compartment, her ears still tingled. The violin tutors laughed to themselves, for even they could scent and feel the prince's mark on her.

When Sakura woke up a few hours later in the afternoon, and passed time by watching the mountains and valleys whiz by, her ears had stopped tingling. Of course, she couldn't scent herself, so thought that all traces of Sasori were gone. It didn't matter anyway. She had a good two or three years to practice, and compose the song she had promised him when she was eight.

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Well, my first comment is about Ino: I never liked her. She was decent as a child, but that doesn't help her in adulthood, in this story and in canon. Her only redeeming quality is a having lasting friendship with her team and I can see nothing else that makes her likable. So I made her unlikable in this story. Thank goodness.

Also I thought that some of you might have thought of Sakura and Sasori sleeping in the same bed (very young teen and three-hundred-forty-year-old man) sort of weird. Remember this is technically a "medieval" time. In the real world medieval times, people got married and had kids at the age of twelve and thirteen, and died at thirty. Plus felis age-gaps were already explained. I don't know why I keep repeating this age thing when not very many of you are bothered by it… Also, also! I know Sakura read two "real" books this chapter, just deal with that also.

Also-also-also, _next _chapter is going to contain the yummy romance that we've all been looking forward to. So enjoy that. Sakura's going to be old enough next chapter to ahem "respond" to our favorite prince's attention and there's going to be more than cute cuddling next chapter. But cuddling is still going to be there anyway. Because it's nice in fanfiction like this.

Happy almost summer everyone, and also ta…Storm


	6. VI

Allright, so…this has been heavily delayed because the prospect of writing the more "mature" romance is a big, intimidating thing for me. I'm also afraid of screwing up Sasori's character, even the freakishly affectionate character I've made him here. I can't really say anything else…because that's the only important thing I can think about right now…So **beware the OOC-ness** on Sasori's behalf.

This may or may not be the last chapter of the story. If it's not, the next chapter will be for sure.

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At the Information Vault

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The first letter Sakura sent home was to her mother and aunt, which they in turn showed to the prince, though they knew he'd be getting his own letter probably the next day. It read thus:

_I left on the morning of April 20__th__. I'm writing this letter on the afternoon of June the 1__st__. I can't believe it took over a month to get to Twilight Wood! Crossing all of Fell was definitely a crazy experience. _

_Kiba's parents told me they lived this little town called Clydesdale prior to moving to Suna, and Asuma, Kurenai and me stopped there for one night, and…well to make a strange story less weird, most of the population knew me and wouldn't stop commenting on how cute I am and pinching my ears and tail and things like that. Very unnerving. I was kind of glad to leave the next morning. _

_We got to the east coast of Fell on the 13__th__ of May, and all the ferries had been—I'm not joking—smashed by hormonal whales. Everyone who had been on ferries at that time lived and came back to shore just fine on lifeboats but they told all us people who wanted to go to Konik that we had to wait for a few days until the whales went back on their migratory path. It was another week, and a two-and-a-half week journey on the ferry to Konik. _

_I won't even elaborate on the size and wonder of the ocean. What I _will _elaborate on is that Kurenai was very sleepy one day on the ship and she fell over the railing into the sea. The captain and me both dove in after her—stop worrying, I can swim perfectly fine and you know it!—and the crew threw some nets over us and pulled us up like a haul of fish. It was a lot funnier than I make it sound. _

_And THEN the ferry came to Twilight Wood. We went into a large bay and stopped at a little port town where you couldn't go anywhere without seeing someone carrying or gutting or talking about fish. And even with that it smelled very nice, more like cake and pastries. I don't know how they manage the smell, but in my time in Konik I promise to figure it out. _

_We got our packs and horses off the ferry and rode up this path that sort of went up and around a mountain. In this part of Konik there are more forests than I've ever seen in my life. You know how there's miles of hilly fields around Suna, and there's a ring of forest around that? That's __nothing. This is like one gigantic green blanket, broken only by a few mountains, lakes or canyons and even those things are few. It's beautiful here, and the temperature is cooler than Suna at this time of year. _

_After that three-hour-long ride we arrived at Kurenai and Asuma's home, Morgan. It's a little village where people never stop smiling, a gigantic clearing in the middle of the woods. A little way north of the village there's a path that goes through the woods, and I swear every tree and pond on that path, hell, every tree and pond around here _sparkles!

_At the end of the path there's a great canyon, very foggy and ominous down at the bottom and it's the only evil-looking thing around. An old bridge goes across it to a more rocky and mountainous area, and as you can guess I love running back and forth on it and trying to make it swing. If it breaks, Asuma assures me I'll fall into a deep, slow-moving river and be just fine and the bridge won't take long to be rebuilt. There's a path from that river that goes straight back up to Morgan. Completely safe, see? _

_Besides that, at least half the population of Morgan is musically inclined. There's a woman named Rin, she's a half-breed and plays the cello and the reed flute. Do you know what a reed flute looks like? The two bloody sticks made from bamboo in my room are reed flutes. (I'll tell you that story in another letter, I know you've wondered for years.) _

_Rin wants me to teach her to play violin, and I've only helped her twice and I found that _I'm _somehow learning new things, too! Kurenai's mother plays violin, too, so now I have three teachers, and I know there's at least two more violin-players in the village I've yet to meet so I'll have _five _teachers soon enough! When I write Sasori I will tell him I might actually come home some months early because of that. Or maybe he's reading this over your shoulder. So he should already know if that's the case, and I'm betting my tail that _is _the case. _

_I' m writing this letter just after I woke up from a short nap (because people in this village and people visiting it always somehow get sleepy a little after noon) and after I give this to the mailer, who will have it sent to the fishy port town and then over a ferry and to Suna, I'm going to go play with the village children. _

_There are a few very random pillars of stone here in Morgan, and the kids like to climb them and jump from one to the next. They're not _that _tall, only about ten feet or so, so if a child falls off they should be allright, if they're a strong felis or half-breed that is. The human kids sometimes sprain their ankles when they fall. Poor humans can't help being a little weak sometimes._

_So here's my first letter to my family. You two don't have to worry about me getting into trouble here. It's a very safe place. The only dangers are an old, creaky bridge hanging high over a dark gorge and some big rocks that I might fall off of. Rin also said the lake on the edge of the village is pretty deep, but I hope you trust me enough not to drown myself in it. (And the fish there aren't big enough to eat me, either.)_

_Sincerely and sort of sleepily, _

_Sakura _

…As one can guess, Sakura enjoyed sending letters to Kiba, Deidara and Hinata of her adventures on the continent of Konik, mostly around the little town called Morgan. She especially enjoyed writing to Sasori and her mother and aunt, telling dangerous little snippets of threatening things she had done, such as pet a sleeping grizzly bear and swim in the shallows of an ocean notorious for fierce bull sharks and riptides.

Naturally, the replies she got from her friends were often something like, "That's awesome! Tell me more, tell me more!" And even more naturally, her family and future mate always had replies along the lines of, "Never. Do that. Again. An ocean separating us doesn't mean you can go and kill yourself! Don't make me come over there!"

The following is the last letter Sakura sent, a few years after her first. She wrote and sent copies to her friends and family so that they each received the same thing. It read thus:

_Four and a half years since I came here. Damn. I love this place and the environment and the people, but I'm coming home soon. I'm almost sure it's the 1__st__ of November. Before the month is over I can almost guarantee I'll be home. I'm wondering if my bed will be too small for me (seriously) and I wonder if I'll be taller than…anybody…when I get back to Suna. Probably not. No matter how much I grow…that city's just full of tall people. _

_Hm. Guess I should write what things I'm bringing with me. I'll tell everyone a ton of things when I'm there, but some little things to know are that, for one, I have now acquired eleven extremely heavy songbooks, each at least three hundred pages, so you people will have to get used to me playing a helluva lot of music. Secondly, Asuma and Kurenai have a grey stallion named Valiance and he's really taken a liking to me over the past few years. They said that if Tsunade and Shizune agree, I can keep him, and he'll stay in the stable on our property with Foxtrot and Maraconn and all our others. Asuma and Kurenai say they'll be just fine traveling with their other two horses, Rhett and Fruit Bat. So…that's up for consideration, I hope. _

_Also a certain redhead ruling the biggest continent on earth may remember a little pink-head kid promising to write him a song when said kid was eight or so years old. Said pink-head has finally gotten that song done. I guess you would call it a "piece of music" since there's no singing…and it's hardly a minute long, but I've made and remade this song over fifteen times and it was beyond frustrating…so I no longer care of the length. _

_I have one last note for the above mentioned redhead ruling the biggest continent on earth. He may (should) know the existence of Lake of Rage near the little city of Friesian, where I, pink-head, would like to meet him on November 20__th__. By then, I'll be riding with Asuma and Kurenai across Fell and sometime on that day or during that night I should arrive at the lake. For reasons I don't feel like explaining I feel Sasori should be first to see me. Apologies, Tsunade. _

_Have a nice Sakura-free month, everyone. It'll be your last. _

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November 20th, 5:09 PM (AN: Sakura's description of Morgan is supposed to be an exact replica of Link's home village, Ordon, in Twilight Princess, FYI.)

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"Wow. I haven't been here in years…Can't believe I'm old enough to say that."

"Eighteen's not that old, Sakura. You're going to live centuries."

"I'm old enough to want to be little again and try my old schemes with my current eighteen-year-old knowledge."

"Come on, Asuma, let her alone. Sakura, your lover is probably waiting for you down at the lake right now. Send Valiance into a gallop and hurry up!"

"Not till you tell me why you just called Sasori my lover, Kurenai."

"Well, that's more or less his purpose in life—"

"His purpose? You make it sound like it's _work. _When he learns to love me—"

"_Learns? _Sakura, were you _conscious _for most of your life? That man has loved you since the day he met you. He—"

"It better have been platonic when I met him. I was seven."

"Kid, you are just—well, I suppose he'll have to teach you himself. All the better."

So went Sakura's conversation with the violin tutors she'd known since age nine, the teacher's she'd lived with for the past four years and taught her for nearly ten. Now, she realized as the three of them rode through the woods and closer and closer to the Lake of Rage, Asuma and Kurenai had grown from being her "aunt and uncle" to a second "mother and father" set. The first set is of course Tsunade, Shizune (both being mothers in her mind) and of course, Sasori, the most fatherly figure she could name.

Our heroine had grown a few inches at most in the years she spent living in the village of Morgan, and her body had filled out to the best of its ability. Like she'd always been, Sakura's body was lean and muscled from years of outdoor play and labor and her eyes were still vividly bright with an adorable innocence that had never left her. Her hair was still cut short to her shoulders and she still had the natural ability to pick up, throw and crush objects much larger and heavier than herself. And like most felis, she had stopped aging completely some months ago. She would forever appear to be a seventeen-year-old young woman.

"What are you waiting for?" Kurenai asked, pushing her horse, Fruit Bat, into a speedy canter. "Didn't you say you were going to meet him at the lake? I'll _push _you there if you don't pick up speed, kit!"

Sakura's lip curled in half-hearted irritation at being called a kit, but she complied and said, "Yeah, yeah. Wait for me at the inn by the west shore. I'll see him and bring him there and we'll all go back to Suna together." Without another word, she clapped her ankles to her stallion's side and Valiance took off galloping. Asuma and Kurenai watched her go with smiles on their faces, and even Rhett and Fruit Bat made pleasant whinnying noises at the girl's fading form.

At this point in time, the pink-haired girl was expertly hiding her nervousness. It's only natural to be nervous, she told herself, when you meet an important person in your life that you haven't seen in years. All the same, she checked herself over (because this _was _royalty she was meeting). Her trousers seemed clean enough and her shirt had only two mild cuts at the end of the left sleeve. She wondered if she smelled like a horse after riding on one for days in a row, despite bathing.

'_I guess I'm presentable.' _she thought as the huge lake came into view._ 'And if I'm not, there's not much I can do anyway, he'll just have to deal with me…Shit, did I tell him _where _to meet me?' _

And it occurred to her that…no, she didn't. She had mentioned only the lake, and not any particular area of it. Lake of Rage was notoriously huge. It took about four hours to circle it on horseback, if said horse was cantering or trotting speedily, and there were plenty of cozy little spots on the banks of the lake where one could relax and have a picnic or meet up with an old friend. It would take hours to find and search all of those spots. And the sun would be setting in less than two hours and Asuma and Kurenai probably didn't want to wait any longer than they had too, after days of riding on horseback to get here…

"Valiance, m'friend…we're in for a long night. And also a ride back to Suna which will take another two grueling hours after we find His Royalness. Huh? Oh."

It was hard to mistake Akasuna no Sasori for a commoner. Like most aristocrats, even standing and doing nothing under a tree, he projected an elegance that most folk couldn't hope to create in their posture. The typical black-and-red robe of his family gave him away, too, along with a distinguishing hair color, and Sakura swore that even from this distance she could see the man's nails were painted black, same as they always had been.

She tried not to snigger, for suddenly the painted nails seemed quite homosexual and she recalled several jokes on the subject Kiba and Deidara had good-heartedly told her in letters throughout the years. She was about fifty yards away now, and very close to a trained felis' hearing range, so controlled her laughs. She dismounted Valiance and let the horse stand in the grassy field and graze himself happy before deciding just the way to see the prince.

She knew just the way to do it. She quietly walked a wide arc to Sasori's left, so that she was many, many yards away from him, farther even than when she dismounted Valiance, and she stood on the same bank of the lake as he. Sakura picked off what looked to be a tiny spider from her tunic and made her way over.

Soon enough, he'd hear her coming, walking along the shores of the Lake of Rage…and then they'd talk about fine weather or something pointless like that, go back to Suna with her violin teachers and find something amusing to do together before her family and friends bombarded her. Chess, maybe. Sasori had always liked strategic games. Maybe she was a good enough player to finally be taken seriously.

'_Here we go.' _She thought, gulping, as he turned his head. Something moved about in the girl's stomach as she watched his brown eyes widen and tail freeze in mid-twirl. He looked quite amazed, much more amazed than she'd thought he'd be. Sakura hoped she looked halfway decent, and thought up snappy things to say should he mention that she appeared dirty.

The snappy things to say, however, wouldn't be born into words until they came within talking distance and one of them said something. So to break the ice, when she was some three or four meters away, she waved her arm and said, "Hi! I grew three inches so you look a little shorter than last time I saw you." And immediately she felt foolish for saying such a thing to someone so important after four _years_, but her face didn't show this at all. Her face showed a calm happiness, and like they always had, her eyes shone, even when she came within his personal space.

He spent a good ten seconds merely staring down at her, eyes unreadable. After this, Sasori reached up a hand and touched her pink felis ear, moving his long fingers up and down its length. You must understand, reader, that no one had touched Sakura's hypersensitive ears in months, and the feel of an unfamiliar hand on them made her tail twitch in discomfort, but she was strong enough to fight the blush that threatened to rise on her cheeks.

We will never know if the prince knew Sakura was fighting a blush. We can only assume that, because he's observant and clever and he knew his kit's personality, that he _did _know she was fighting it, and like most who observed Sakura fighting a blush he found the sight adorable and could not resist reacting to it. That may be the reason he decided to kiss her.

The hand that had been fondling her felis ear moved to the back of her head, and Sakura's eyes rolled to the side as though looking at the hand would get it to move away. This did not work. Poor innocent Sakura had no warning; in the next moment she had the prince's lips on hers and her eyes closed fearfully.

Her mind fuzzed slightly, but she steeled herself, determined to live through the experience and use it as an excuse to knock him unconscious and not be arrested for high treason or any such thing. With a steeled, focused mind, she felt every detail, real and perhaps a few her mind made up, of his body, for the prince insisted on pressing it against hers and there was no way to _not _feel him.

One hand held the back of her head to prevent escape, the other held one of her own hands and squeezed it, and Sakura knew that in all the times she'd heard Sasori purr, he'd never sounded so pleased as he did now. Not to mention that his tail twined tightly around hers, and his tongue was in her mouth now and _good gracious god—_

Now she found a special reserve of strength and pushed away with enough force to make a dent in a stone wall. This was just enough to move Sasori off of her. She staggered back a step and put a hand to her mouth tentatively. She faintly heard him whisper her name, and the hurt and desperation there was more than tangible.

Sakura wasn't so cruel as to swipe her hand across her mouth—the new taste there was sort of interesting so there wouldn't be a point anyway—but she pointed an accusing finger at him and said, "You prick! You _assaulted _me!" Again she heard him say her name, and she heard the same heartbrokenness in it, and her hand fell back to her side. Sighing and shaking her head hopelessly, she walked up to him again and put both arms around him. The action was immediately reciprocated on his side, and she felt him nuzzling into her hair.

"At least _ask _next time." She grinned, trying not to giggle as he licked one of her felis ears. For the third time he spoke quietly and on the edge of hearing, but it was not her name this time. "I missed you," was the frantic whisper. "I _missed you." _

"Yeah, yeah, I know." Deciding to be even braver, Sakura grasped one of his hands. "We should leave now." he said, surprising her. "Your instructors are waiting for us. And yes, I've brought my own horse." he added just as Sakura opened her mouth.

The prince didn't twine their tails, which surprised Sakura, but he held her hand tightly as they walked towards Valiance and his index finger roved across her hand constantly, and this did not surprise her. Voicing another thought along that line, she muttered jokingly, "I'm surprised you would want to lose our alone time so quickly. Some people will be asleep when we get back, but some will still be awake, friends and family included…and they'll see me and won't leave me alone…"

Sakura curiously regarded the hand that fondly brushed her cheek. "I've waited four years to touch you again. I can stand one more night if I must."

'_That does not sound platonic.' _Sakura thought with more-than-mild nervousness.

"I will be a part of the group listening to the stories you have to tell. And after you've told a few hours' worth, you will be spending the night with me."

"That does not sound platonic." Said our now-frightened Sakura aloud.

"It isn't." he said flatly. The look in his eyes, however, was far from "flat." To prove her inner strength, Sakura did not look away from his eyes when he added, "You think I dreamed about you eighteen years ago for no particular reason, Sakura? You are my mate. I'm attracted to you." And as though to prove it, he kissed her hand and added, "And I'm not going to make a secret of it."

At this point, Sakura was standing by Valiance and was more than ready to mount. Her only response was a very mild-sounding, "Okay." She mounted her stallion and looked straight ahead, wondering how long she would be alone with him—and immediately wished the gods would come down from heaven so she could hug them. Asuma and Kurenai were riding straight towards them on their horses with Sasori's much more decorated mare in tow.

And just in time, just before the violin instructors came into hearing range, Sakura leaned down slightly to Sasori with the reins in her hand so as not to fall off the horse. She whispered, "If you do anything I dislike…you know what I'm capable of. Keep in mind a certain bomb I once set off in your parlor at age twelve…and a giraffe who ran around your castle when I was eight…"

Sasori purred and his gaze was nothing short of loving.

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November 20th, 7:48 PM

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"My baby! _My baby!" _

"Sakura, you have curves! Like, visible curves! What the hell happened?"

"…Hi!"

"Look, Hiashi, dear, it's the prince's kit! She's grown up! Still looks sort of like a kit, though."

"We have four years' worth of trees to climb, woman! You missed out on so much fun here!"

"Look, you're still small enough to fit in the bed you've had since you were three."

"You. Me. Slingshots and duck butts. The city gate. Tomorrow."

And so went Sakura's interaction with all her friends and family and acquaintances of Suna throughout the next few days. Now, let's elaborate on the first night, when she was just coming home. The group had gone through the mountain pass and were now just coming through the woods into the fields. Suna's famous castle was nearly in sight.

Her mother and aunt, predictably, ran out of the cottage barefoot the second they saw her coming through the edge of the trees. She dismounted Valiance and ran over the hills to meet them and felt her family's tightest hugs. She walked the rest of the mile or so across the fields, letting Asuma lead Valiance and he, his wife and the prince to watch her interact with her family. When she saw the family's corral come into view, she dashed towards the horses standing in it with her mother and aunt's hand firmly clasped in hers. The horses knew immediately who she was and covered her with happy nuzzles.

Kiba and Hinata had been waiting in the house with her parents and came outside just after they saw her running across the front of the house to the horses. It was only after the horses let up their attention that Sakura turned around and was promptly scared to death by Kiba, now towering many inches over her, and currently standing about two inches away.

They hugged each other to the point of cutting off one another's oxygen and needing to release each other to catch their breath and cough. Then Hinata became brave enough to step up and show off her gorgeous, long hair to her old friend, and the three became entangled in a strangling-hug once more that made Hinata struggle to breathe for the rest of the night. Every time someone spotted her coughing, they also spotted her smiling.

Everyone eventually made their way into Tsunade, Shizune and Sakura's cottage and took to sitting on the stairs instead of at a table or couch of any sort. Sakura sat at the top step, Sasori and her mother three below, and the others scattered on other steps as Sakura weaved a fantastical tale of her time in Twilight Wood and her experiences with the people of Morgan.

She related losing her precious Versace violin and searching a ten-mile perimeter for it in the freezing dead of winter before realizing it had been stuck under her bed. (Sasori twined their tails.) She told her friends and family about being challenged to a race by a nondescript boy and their trials of the race, including running through treetops, lassoing wild goats in Twilight Wood's wild mountains and beating and whaling each other near to unconsciousness when they were close to the finish line.

She told of how she _did _fall off the creaky old bridge near Morgan that she wrote about in her very first letter, via a plank that couldn't hold her weight and broke under her. She fell some three hundred feet into a river where leeches stuck all over her body and sucked away so much of her blood she fell unconscious for an entire day on the riverbank. She didn't return to her highly-anxious village friends until nearly the next dawn. At this particular story, her mother and Sasori gave her fierce glares which Sakura calmly ignored.

Midnight had passed long ago. Kiba and Sakura had yawned a good twenty times in the past hour and all agreed it was time to sleep. A few more stories would be told tomorrow, but most of the day would be comprised of Sakura telling the entire city she'd returned, from the parents of her dear friends to waitresses of her favorite old restaurants to Ino and Ami, the half-breeds who had now been offered jobs at six different brothels in Suna's neighboring towns.

Somewhat unwilling to let her old best friend leave, Sakura flicked Kiba's brown felis ear with a rude but good-humored claw and he walked out into the night sniggering at her. Deidara, who had entered the premises around 9:00 to see his favorite young partner-in-crime, spent his last few minutes at the household promising Sasori he would leave Sakura alone.

Sakura naturally eavesdropped on this conversation and wondered about it a lot. Like she always did, she kept the extremely pressing question to herself and mulled it over as everyone left. (Her innocent and oblivious conclusion was that Sasori had found out about, and was furious about never being told of, the time Deidara accidentally shoved her into a tar pit and she came close to drowning before he found a vine long enough for her to grab.)

She felt a tap on her shoulder and was met by Shizune, who hugged her once more and said, "Your mother and me are going to bed. We're not expecting you home till late morning; god knows you both need sleep."

The pink-haired girl curled her tail curiously. "Expecting me home?" she repeated slowly. Her aunt nodded while behind her, a familiar and royal voice explained, "Of course. I doubt your bed is large enough to accommodate the both of us and leave suitable space."

"Tch. You just like yours better." Sakura snapped with a grin, hiding the growing nervousness. "Just because it's three times the size of mine and it has a canopy and much fluffier pillows. You royalfolk are so _soft_."

"Majesty! Is this your mare's bridle?" Tsunade called from the next room, thankfully drawing Sasori away. Sakura grasped Shizune's arm with an iron grip and as soon as he was out of the room she pulled her aunt close. Their noses nearly touched. "You didn't say a word just now! Were you just going to let me sleep in this man's bed without even commenting on it?" she hissed.

A grin broke out on Shizune's face. "Nothing I can do about it…nothing I'd want to do about it, anyway."

Sakura's face, however, was dangerously blank. "You _approve _of this?"

"Yes."

"_Why?!" _

The confusion on her aunt's face was genuine. "You are…er, you are not his chosen for nothing, Sakura…A mated pair of felis generally sleep in the same bed. It's a form of bonding. Common as clouds in the sky."

She tightened her grip on her aunt's arm, hissing, "I thought when it was time for this he'd act all clever and elegant, and make subtle movements. Subtle! How can you not even bat an eye when Sasori asks me to sleep in his bed? Better yet, why the hell did I agree to do it?"

"Because I will arrest you otherwise." Said our handsome prince, striding into the room. "Come along, please. I'm very tired as well." The thought, _'Gods, please say he's telling the truth,' _flitted through Sakura's mind briefly before she replied, "You will…arrest me if I don't sleep in your bed?" The reply was a nod and a very smug smirk.

She briefly considered spending the night in a cold cell with the city's local drunks and villains to be more comfortable than the prince's silken bed. But it probably would do her no good to mention such a thing, so Sakura muttered, "Fine. Let me get a set of clothes for tomorrow…" Shizune laughed sheepishly, "Already there for you." Sakura's answering glare could have been poison. Sasori only chuckled, wrapped his tail around Sakura's hand, and led her out through the front door.

Tsunade and Shizune were watching them walk off, perfectly aware that Sasori had left his horse in their care solely for the purpose of walking with her. They both turned their felis ears to hear bits of conversation going on between their precious girl and the prince. Sakura was threatening, "I will be watching every move you make. I hope you heard what I said at Lake of Rage, I mean every word of it."

Her only reply was a hand tilting her head slightly back, and a kiss on the forehead. Sakura scoffed and turned her head, but allowed their tails to stay twined.

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November 21st, 6:41 AM

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Once upon a time a few centuries ago, Deidara Iwa befriended the Akasuna prince. They were only a half-year or so apart in age and even though Deidara came from a nondescript, middle class family, the day he saw the prince sneaking out of the castle to escape his tutors he knew he'd found a friend.

They were both close to ten or eleven years of age at the time and Deidara remembered being particularly friendly to everyone at that time, strangers, family, random folk on the street, and saw no problem with saying hi to the prince. Sasori asked that the peasant to take him around town and help him get rid of his headache. Deidara found him a secret passage out of the royal city and into the fields beyond.

Here they played at skipping rocks on a pond as any child would do. Here the outrageously cheerful and energetic blonde and the contrastingly mellow redhead became the best of friends forever after. (Deidara always thought when Sasori's rock smacked a duck in the face and the two fell over laughing really helped get their friendship started, FYI.) When Sasori appointed him as one of his chief advisors at age thirteen—for the prince's parents had died of black fever before that and even then he ruled the continent—Deidara accepted. Despite being a young and outgoing soul, for his age he was incredibly keen and could recognize a subtle politician's insult when he heard it.

Often, Deidara had to partake in Sasori's royal affairs: meeting with village and town leaders from all over the continent, accompanying him to gatherings also all over the continent, pleasing the politicians at fanciful dances and balls. Only once did he embarrass his best friend, at one aforementioned fanciful ball. The blonde liked to tell his friend about this occasion often and Sasori never wanted to hear it.

It was at the anniversary of the old Noriker king and queen, the parents of the not-even-conceived-yet prince Shikamaru. Sasori was actually having a fun time talking to the queen about the various types of thunderstorms, for she enjoyed weather and all things mother earth had to offer, and Sasori enjoyed most all intellectual subjects. Sometime in the conversation Deidara came to stand by them, wearing dining garb as were all royal nobles present there. He grew bored after fifteen minutes of gab about rain and clouds and eventually said, "Sasori, don't you think lying to her Ladyship is wrong? I mean, just because you like to go out and sing aloud in the rain doesn't mean you're actually _interested _in it."

This may seem like a stupid, untrue and pointless joke made by any old blonde. But this was a stupid joke at a ball for the highest-ranked nobles around the world, and such jokes totally did not fly.

Sasori promptly emptied his delicate champagne glass of its last few sips and smashed it on Deidara's head. Deidara was knocked unconscious immediately and collapsed. Having gotten the attention of everyone in the parlor, Sasori grasped his friend by his felis tail and pulled him outside with a polite farewell to the queen. Sasori lifted his friend onto his horse and rode off, going several miles and waiting for Deidara to wake before pushing him off the horse—waking him fully—and raising his voice a _lot _by telling Deidara to _never _talk like a toothless country bumpkin in front of nobles ever _again. _

Deidara loooved talking about that. He argued Sasori had been the one to overreact, smashing a drinking glass on his head and dragging him out of the party like a carcass and shoving him off a galloping horse—but by the time he got to "galloping horse" Sasori would usually be walking in a different direction, with his tail curling in what any felis would recognize as irritation.

He was thinking about this now. He did often, because it helped him laugh when he was called to droning, depressing council meetings early in the morning and late at night. He was heading up to the prince's personal chambers now to take…a peek or two. For Sasori and Sakura were sleeping there, and the sight of them together again would be worth any object Sasori threw at him if he was caught looking. Sakura, who'd always been an ungodly cute felis, had only added attractiveness to her adorability in the past few years, and doubtless the prince would be crushing her to him in his sleep now—sleeping deeply, for they were both being allowed to sleep well into the morning and the sun was only now rising—and probably purring so loudly Deidara would hear it before he opened the door!

But he reached the door—ornately carved, pewter-knobbed door—and heard no purring. Perhaps he was awake, watching her sleep. That sight would also be worth seeing, and without another thought Deidara turned the knob, moved the door forward slightly, and poked his head in. At once he noticed the absence of anything _pink _in the room and knew something was wrong. He moved the door aside completely and took another five steps…and saw Sasori sitting up on the four-post bed, in his nightclothes, holding something white in his hand. A card. A note.

The prince flicked his red-furred tail as a gesture for Deidara to enter. He winced as he came in, for the curtains over the gigantic windows were drawn fully back and the first glint of the sun slanted painfully into his cerulean eyes. He came within the prince's personal space and leaned down to see the note he held.

"You molested her? I thought you'd wait a couple days."

Sasori blinked. Stared at the note. Said nothing.

_Dear his Majesty Akasuna: _

_I hope you still recognize my funky ambidextrous writing. (Left hand today.) I'll keep this short as I can, since you may wake up any second and find me writing you a goodbye note. Frankly, I woke up because you were molesting me and biting my ears in your sleep. I spent half an hour wriggling away from you and finding a blank piece of paper to write this on. I knew some romantic advance would be made, but not while you were _sleeping. _Goodness knows what you were dreaming about. I'm heading to the Stables in the fields out of the city. I'll be hanging around there till you meet me. See you there._

_Sakura _

"And she got away from you without waking you. Her cunning has increased tenfold, Majesty. At least!" But Deidara said this only as a feeble attempt to distract the prince from the obvious item in the letter that hurt him: Sakura had felt him touching her at night and felt so discomforted she had to leave. Sakura, who would be the prince's mate, who was closer to him than any other, retreated from his advances.

"…Are you gonna go now?"

"Yes. Few will be awake before sunrise."

"It's just because she's never experienced that before. You're the first, which is _good, _yeah? Any men interested in her over in Twilight Wood couldn't get close."

Sasori spared him a quick, sharp glance as he made for the chamber door. "I know that. And I'm very glad about it." he said.

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November 21st, 7:22 AM

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Sakura saw the black speck coming long before he was close enough to know she'd seen him. The stables, a trio of buildings standing quite randomly in Suna's grassland, housed all the horses the city residents owned (for few could be kept in the busting city). There was a giant corral off to one side and here the horse Hinata's family owned, Toshiro, a little stallion, was prancing around for Sakura's amusement in the early morning. She sat on a fencepost watching him, fully dressed and awake and alert. She glanced in the direction of the the walled city of Suna every few minutes.

This time when she looked, she saw he was coming towards her. Several hours earlier than she'd assumed. (He always used to complain about lack of sleep and now he wakes twenty minutes after she leaves him—at _sunrise?_)

Sakura sighed and brushed the clothes she'd dressed in before coming here. Sasori, as far as she could see, was still wearing his sleeping robe, which didn't really matter because the only difference between it and his family's customary cloak was the fact that the sleeping robe was thinner and smoother, and he wore it daringly open at the chest. (Which wasn't bad.) All the same, the reason he was walking out here in his nightclothes was because he was coming to discuss the reasons he'd sexually assaulted her in his sleep.

This would doubtlessly be the most _adult _conversation she'd yet had in her eighteen years. Goodness knew if the conversation ended with her coming out "unscathed."

He was definitely close enough to see her now…close enough to tell when she blinked or how many fingers she held up. Toshiro wisely trotted back into the stone building and left them alone. Sakura inwardly wished to drag the horse back out again.

He stopped, a step or two from her perch on the fencepost, almost a head lower than she. Sakura drew up all her courage, all the scraps she could find, and, finding the scraps few in number fell back on fearful honesty. "I don't know how to start this. But I don't want you thinking I hated you for it. I thought the note sounded…resentful. But I didn't want to waste time making another."

Feeling somewhat "uneven," Sakura dropped down from the fencepost and stood at her normal height to face him as normally as possible. She'd rehearsed this several times in the twenty or so minutes she'd been waiting here, but couldn't remember the beginning sentences. She was about to admit this when, thank god, Sasori spoke first.

"The point of your letter is that you're uncomfortable with my advancing on you, correct?"

"Incorrect." Sasori raised a very interested brow. _'Fuck. I better not screw this up!'_

"I'm merely uncomfortable with you doing it in your sleep. Or if you do, I'd rather be warned before going to bed that…that you're in the mood for that sort of thing." _'Sakura, you _suck _at this. Keep going.' _

The prince laughed, showing felis fangs. "I can't really _warn _you about what I do in my sleep. I've been told that I hardly move when I sleep. I wake up in nearly the same position as I slept in." He leaned down a little, showing fangs again. "But if I'm 'in the mood' for anything, I won't wait till I lose consciousness to tell you."

By now Sakura was rearing her head back just a wee bit to keep Sasori from coming too close. "A-Another topic up for…discussion there." she stuttered quite pathetically. Of course, there was no way to ask him what she wanted to ask him, for she didn't know quite what it was or how to word it. The best she could come up with was, "I-I just didn't expect that on my first night home. I thought you'd start out with some innuendo or…something. I didn't think I'd wake with someone fondling me in bed. Understandable, yeah?"

She was forced to grab hold of the fencepost as Sasori touched his forehead to hers suddenly. He closed his eyes and sighed, seemingly understanding her point. Some ten seconds later, she did hear him mutter, "I haven't seen you in four years. I was…excited."

'_Excitement is no excuse to molest children, you know?!' _She wondered if she should say something like this. Sasori's tail curled like a curious felis kitten. "What did I do, exactly?"

"Everything a good, old-fashioned rapist would be able to do in thirty seconds. It wasn't so bad after about forty, though…Why are you _grinning?_"

"Good, old-fashion rapist?" he repeated, but Sakura got the feeling that phrase wasn't what he was grinning about. "I hope you realize I have complete rights to do whatever a rapist would." Sakura realized. And he continued. "My dreaming of you alone certifies it, but being of royal blood helps immensely. The prince can do whatever he wishes to his mate. No army or noble can do anything." He was still grinning.

Sakura talked only for the sake of hiding the nervousness that was now becoming familiar. "You're saying that next time I find myself molested by you, I should stick it out because no one can help me? Is that it?" _'Not even me?' _she almost added.

"That _is _the law…" He was purring. He had one arm around her, pulling her extremely close, and another hand prodding a pink ear.

And now, Sakura faced what years of childhood scheming could not avert or change. Bravely, swallowing and gathering her voice first, she said, "Fine. But it'd really be nice if you didn't assault me in public that much. And if you go too far in your sleep, I think I have a right to stop you."

There was a decidedly hot tongue on Sakura's cheek. She knew this would make her blush if it went on, so she distracted him: "When is it official that I'm your mate?" He licked her again and Sakura _almost _mewled. "Whenever we both agree. Legal issues claim we must put it in writing and then marry. But that can wait for a bit."

Continuously, Sasori licked her face and ears and fingers, forcing his younger love to go to ridiculous lengths to hide her pleased noises. Sasori pressed and pressed, wanting to hear, and Sakura, secretly overproud, would not let him. After some three minutes of this torture, an old memory came up in Sakura's mind: of grooming, which Asuma had once claimed one day in Morgan, was another common felis gesture of affection, and a strong one, rivaling the famous touching of one's ears and feline licks on the cheek. A tradition going back to when the four great continents were but one giant land mass.

Sakura's fantastically perfect mate was so _old. _By now…three hundred forty-seven!

She couldn't help it. She giggled. Possibly getting the wrong idea and possibly not, Sasori purred louder and used his tail to pull his mate closer. The sound of her laughter: just another trait he'd been waiting to return with her from across the ocean. One of many that she'd thankfully kept the same, one of many he'd missed.

The laughing wasn't particular loud or hysterical at all, but she went on with it for a good while and when she stopped Sakura was asked what was so funny. "An old joke I remembered…" she said, finally stopping her foolish chuckles. "You're so damned old, Sasori."

He frowned. Deeply. Much too deeply. Sakura looked up at him, gazing regretfully out into the fields. "Was this something you forgot to discuss today?" he murmured. "That I am too old for you?" Sakura's felis ears perked straight up and attracted the prince's attention once more. She was smiling. "What? Too old for me? Of course you are." Sasori stared into her vivid eyes and did not understand.

"Ahh." The girl's brows went up. "You can't tell what I…" She looked away, blinking unsurely, eyes flashing as they always did with a hundred thoughts. She met his eyes again, met an expression that made him look even older. "You used to call me 'little one' when I was younger. I assumed that was a term of endearment, or…or some such thing. I made jokes about your old age as, well, a response to that. My _own_…strange term of endearment." Sasori's chocolate eyes met Sakura's emerald in a way they never had before.

Sasori promptly pounced on his young mate.

Three dozen horses stuck their heads out of the Stables' windows and watched.

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Well, damn. This isn't the last chapter after all. I still want to put Ino and Ami in here, and I'm not sure about putting Sakura's promised violin song for Sasori in here. (I was thinking the theme to Pan's Labyrinth, but there were other ideas, too.) Of course, I apologize for the thorough raping of Sasori's character. I think he's worse here than in any other chapter and lots of times I stopped writing to listen to music and distract myself from how _terribly _OOC I made the poor guy. But it's medieval times in this tale, FYI. Blame that if you like.

This chapter is dedicated to **A Seagull Among Songbirds, **who sent me what I thought to be a very personal and touching PM. : )

I may add more comments later. For once I'm not hours late for bed on a school night, but I need to take my dog for a walk. She's whining and prancing around and shedding her hair all over.

Ta…Storm


	7. VII

I'm both happy and sad right now, happy because I got myself a new (actually used but re-discovered from the overstuffed basement) bookshelf and some decent space for all my lovely books and the dozens more I will get in the future, and sad because my dad has…hmm, how to make this short—refused to do something that would greatly help my mother's and my financial issues. He refused politely and with good reason, but refused all the same and it's probably going to cost us a thousand or so dollars. Which is a lot for us.

Besides those things—and I got a fucked hair cut like _Rei Ayanami _two days before school pictures—I've got nothing more to say. I would like to get straight to writing. Because here in chapter 7, there actually is some **YUMMY ROMANCE**. The kind you secretly dream about at night.

Oh, nothing to say, save for the unfortunate repeated phrase: **Yes, Sasori is OOC **in this particular fanfiction. Along with some other characters but none so much as him.

Ah, but how could I forget the other warning? Because of the yummy romance mentioned above, I should also warn you that it gets…feral…around the second half of the chapter. Keep in mind that our handsome prince and devious pauper aren't human, and for non-humans love is an even bigger deal than it is for humans.

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At the Information Vault

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As was sort of necessary, Sakura and Sasori spent the rest of the day showing off to the city of Suna that Sakura Hokage, daughter and niece to Tsunade and Shizune Hokage, was back and better than ever, and was now perpetually and hopelessly attached to the prince of Fell. The entire city saw this—smelled his cinnamon scent all about her which could only mean he had groomed her—and almost the entire population was outrageously supportive, congratulatory and joyful.

Breakfast was eaten in Sakura's favorite old restaurant, where a chef she knew on a personal level could spice food items to a near intolerance and also make them so delicious the customer would finish their grand dish despite the fire in their mouths and tears in their eyes. Sakura turned this chef's foods into a contest with Sasori, who showed next to nothing at downing a cup's worth of broiled steak smothered in spice and sauce. Eventually _she _was the one to cave and chug three glasses of water and submit to Sasori's winning condition of an open kiss in front of all the cooks who had watched them eat, who in turn roared with cheer, at both a sight they'd been waiting years for and Sakura's inevitably adorable blush.

Next, our crafty violinist left the city walls to Suna's verdant fields and found the pond where the half-breed, eared but tailless Shino Aburame had wanted to meet her with a pair of slingshots, for a good old childhood game of "Hit The Ducks," which still remained a popular activity for Suna children and major annoyance to the water fowl population. Sakura and Shino went back into the city covered with feathers and scratches from the angry mother duck who had assaulted them for a full seventeen minutes.

And she couldn't have gone through the day without taking Kiba and Hinata on a nostalgic run through their secret underground tunnels and rooftop routes through the city. Sakura greeted her oldest friends with more hugs that, like last night, were truly dangerous in that they were so tight they cut off oxygen. The friends didn't care, for they knew they'd think up a way to heal themselves should one of them get injured.

Kiba had somehow gotten only more skilled at knowing the routes like the back of his hand, (he walked and ran them with his eyes closed sometimes) and Hinata's natural, lifelong fragility hardly showed on the stony ground and cold tunnels the routes often took them through. They watched the city's daily bustling from the top of the castle's lowest tower, some two stories in the air. Kiba had made a staircase of sorts out of stones he'd pulled just a few inches out of the castle's outer wall frame, just enough room for his deft feet. He prided himself on this special spot, for he knew personally that the top of this tower was a rarely-used guestroom penthouse, and not even the prince knew he'd made it his special place.

Let us not forget the general public of Suna, all of whom knew Sakura for her quirky cleverness and trickery and unforgettable adorability. She waved hello to everyone she could remember, which enclosed the entire population, and any tiny children her acquaintances had borne in the last four years. Word had gotten around the city, in fact a good part of the world, that she'd promised the prince she'd compose a song for him on the very violin he'd given her, and demand for this song was shown to Sakura by nearly every commoner she greeted.

Eventually she started telling folk that she'd play the song at the city gate at two in the afternoon. She spent the next hour or so regretting this, for she wasn't sure if Sasori would have wanted it to be played in Suna's amphitheatre, or in public at all. He seemed complacent and silent enough, but that was his nature, wasn't it?

The public began gathering at the gate long before two, in hopes of seeing Sakura early and catching a sight of, or conversation with, her. Some fifteen minutes before two, she arrived to find an extremely sizeable crowd. With the strength and speed natural to any felis, her especially, Sakura leapt to the top of one of the stone gate pillars making intervals in the city wall and sat there with her Versace violin in her lap, waiting for her inner clock to give her the signal, and also for Sasori to appear. She looked for any of his close acquaintances or friends: Tenten, now the castle's head chef; Kakuzu, his three-quarters felis head treasurer and his traveling (disturbingly zealous) monk brother Hidan, whom Sakura had once glimpsed in the Twilight Wood area years ago; Deidara, his best friend…or even any of his castle's staff. But none from the castle could be seen. Were they all hiding, she wondered idly? Sakura stood up on the pillar when her inner clock struck two, and all grew quiet.

She sighed before speaking. She couldn't refuse the public the song now that she'd promised it outright and they'd already gathered here, but it was _Sasori's _song and if he wasn't here to listen to it, that sort of ruined things. She'd probably have to swallow her pride, fear and all else and make a romantic advance later on to make it up to him. Now that she was of marrying age—actually a few years above—he would appreciate that…quite a bit.

"I know you've all been waiting for this for a very long time," she said, listening to her voice echo over the ancient city's buildings. "If I'm remembering things right, I've promised this song…it's been in the works for…about ten years now? A lot for one my age. It's not even a minute long, I warn you, not even thirty seconds, but I promise I've revised and twisted and turned it to be as close to perfect as I can make it."

The silence was audible, she swore, a ghostly sort of buzzing, beeping, in all four of her ears. Sakura lifted her violin and touched its end to her left cheek and, for today, using her right hand to maneuver the bow. "After way too much debate with myself I settled on calling it _Song of Storms,_ because the last time I watched a thunderstorm here in Fell, I was watching it while spending as much time as I could with someone I would not see for four years. That person should remember that thunderstorm." Sakura brushed a near-invisible dent on the tip of her pink, furred ear, a spot Sasori had nibbled while watching the rain. "The mark is still there."

All felis and half-breeds in the crowd gave a quick purr to that, and the humans' eyes seemed to shine in all sorts of grand emotions. Sakura sighed again, prepared herself as best as one deep breath could, and played.

The piece spanned hardly twenty seconds, and began with a few harsh, halted notes and slid into a rhythm that spanned the rest of the song. It was the smooth, flawless rhythm, the larger, second portion of the _Song of Storms _which was able to bring a tear to more than one eye in the audience.

Her bow lifted from the strings and she spent the next few seconds staring appreciatively at the strings, for she heard not a single clap of hands from anyone standing on the ground below her, and she had expected someone to _laugh_, at the least. To hear nothing wasn't insulting, it was eerie, depressing, and bordered frightening—and at that point she spotted where the audience's gaze had gone to. The stone pillar next to hers, some eight or nine feet away, where—of course, Sasori stood, handsome smile showing small, regal appreciation and eyes not nearly so controlled.

The tops of the pillars rose a few feet above the wall itself. Sasori crossed the foot-thick top rim of the wall and stepped up onto Sakura's pillar, where there was hardly enough room for both of them to stand. She sensed what was coming and moved her violin and bow to her left hand, the hand farthest from him. She glimpsed Ino Yamanaka and her friend Ami in the crowd in what must have been typical, scant and sensual gowns; both had awed tears and years-old fury mixed in their eyes, but their bristling felis ears showed fury only.

Sakura predicted and experienced the conclusion and wasn't sure why she gave a little grin when it happened: Sasori put one hand to her shoulder, and lifted a finger slightly. His birth-given ability moved Sakura's head forward as well as his and they met in the inevitable kiss that truly set the city roaring.

She felt his love moving into her—was this part of his birth-given ability, too?—ounce by ounce, filling every space and cavity her physical being had to offer, and then those her spiritual and mental being as well, for there seemed to not be enough space for this surreal thing.

It was somehow even much more than the colossal amount she expected, and he pulled away only when she knew he had hardly begun showing her all of it and yet she'd been about to scream.

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November 23rd, 5:06 AM

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Sakura's dream wasn't quite bad enough to be called a nightmare, but was enough to leave a chill within her when she woke. She dreamt she was within some unfamiliar amphitheatre, in a seat quite near the front and wearing a rather flattering sleeveless black tunic and pants. Instead of a play or musical performance on the stage, felis and human men were playing out some sort of sports game on stage and the audience, dressed in cocktail party dresses and suits, roared and beat their hands in the air.

For some reason, Sakura decided to take her leave from the event and walked to the back of the amphitheatre. Here, dozens of carriages and buggies were parked and the horses were safely stored in the nearby holding barn. She was walking past the last few carriages and buggies in the lot when her fine felis hearing picked up a sound: swift footsteps. Someone running.

Sakura turned around and saw a tall boy running in her direction with a pained grimace on his face, about her age if a bit older, and human or half-breed, as he had no feline ears or tail. Most strange of all about this boy was that he wore nothing but a dark pair of (the newly-invented sensation:) boxers, and was covered from head to toe in sweat. Even from ten or twelve carriage-lengths away Sakura could see he was absolutely soaked in it, and shone with it. The boy's eyes caught sight of Sakura standing there in the night and his grimace became even more agonized. He ran towards her. Sakura did nothing till the boy ran up to her, grasped her wrists and pinned them against the carriage behind her.

"Please let me have sex with you!" he screamed desperately. "I need it! Please!" Sakura only stuttered, as this was not something one frequently heard, and also because fear was gripping her tightly—the boy's grip was very strong, and she knew he could rape her if he wished.

"Please! Please!" the boy kept yelling. Each cry was more hurt and desperate than the last and each second his hand drew closer to the buttons of Sakura's pants. Thank the gods, a plan hatched in her mind then and Sakura asked incredulously, "Why are you choosing me?" The boy looked troubled. "You're…you're so pretty, so flawless…" he stammered, his teeth starting to chatter. Sakura forced a convincing laugh out her mouth and her eyes danced with fake sarcasm.

"Me! Pretty! Are you blind, boy? Do you know how old I am? No one has asked me out to a late dinner or an amphitheater play my whole life! My old friend, Ino, now she was taken out at _ten _by a crush of hers. She's rather bitchy now but also…well, a slut. She'd have little objection to you."

He met her eyes. "There…There are girls like that?" he asked. She felt something close to pity for this male. He seemed so confused and frantic with anxiety, it felt cruel to trick him. But the bit about Ino _was _partially true.

"Wh—_are there_? There have been since women have walked this earth! Perhaps even Emiko Kami would oblige to it. I know Ms. Airi would dislike it, but there's no way her weak little self could fight you off if you decided to go after her."

The boy seemed excited now, but his face was still desperate and incredibly sweaty. "Where are those girls? Emiko and Airi and Ino…?" Sakura's trapped hand opened and her index finger pointed at the glowing, noisy amphitheatre. "I know Ino and Ms. Airi are watching the show now. I'm not quite sure about Emiko Kami, but I know once the show ends she'll be picking up Ino and Ms. Airi in her turquoise buggy."

The sweaty boy smiled at her now. "Thank you. Thank you, pink one, thank you!" He released Sakura's hands and took off in a shiny, sweaty blur around the amphitheatre towards the entrance. Sakura breathed a sigh of relief and wiped the wet remains of his sweaty hands off her wrists and turned to walk away when her furred, pink ears suddenly pricked. She turned around swiftly again and saw the boy had stopped halfway to the amphitheatre doors. He turned around and showed Sakura menacing black eyes full of dark realization. He knew he'd been tricked—and she felt something new happening in her mind then, something she knew was familiar but couldn't describe…and now she recognized it.

She was waking from the dream. There was a weight on her, someone laying part of their body on her back. Someone whose scent the feral, felis section of her mind recognized and didn't at all feel awake enough to interact with.

"Leave me alone, old man," she muttered. But there was no change. No weight or pressure added or taken back, no playful bite on the feline ear, not even an amused purr or tail twitch.

Sakura opened her eyes unwillingly; she sensed it was still early morning, even before sunrise and they had three hours or more before anyone expected them anywhere but in each other's sleeping company. She saw little but dark outlines at first and pale stars through the crack in the curtain.

As mother nature and his own will intended, Sasori had protectively draped a moderate part of his body around his mate's, with an arm, part of a leg and most of his tail keeping her body close enough to his to be considered intimate. She noticed that at the same time this was a lot less closeness than she'd been expecting to wake up to. Perhaps he was truly asleep and had drifted slightly away from her in slumber, for once allowing Sakura sufficient personal space.

She tried not to move but lay still and adjusted her felis eyes to the dark. His eyes were closed and his breathing in a mostly-steady and deep pattern, as was typical of any sleeper. He appeared to be wearing—oh, thank goodness—not boxers but plain and simple men's sleeping trousers, black, same as a good three-fourths of his clothes. To distract herself from the attention-grabbing leanness and muscle that rippled even in sleep, Sakura drew back into her mind, sifting through memories…and confirmed her sudden idea. Yes, he wore no shirt. The last time she had slept in his bed with him, last night, he'd been wearing a sleeping robe, suggestively and slightly open at the chest, and the time before that, she had been fourteen, preparing to take her leave to a different continent for four years. And he hadn't been shirtless then, either.

Come to think of it, she couldn't remember him being shirtless when they went to bed several hours ago. He'd offered her a chance to change in his clothing chamber—what Ino would call a "dream closet," as it was large enough to play hide-and-seek in—and by the time she'd emerged he'd been dressed for bed as well.

At what point did he wake up in the night and randomly decide to strip? It wasn't very hot, in fact, it was getting colder almost every day… And if she asked, he'd more than likely be inclined to groom her than to answer her.

And there, randomly in the middle of the night, Sasori shifted slightly in his sleep, moving his head downwards until his lips barely touched down on Sakura's hair. He sighed, and the movement of hot air, naturally, agitated Sakura's felis ears. She stifled a half-formed gurgle in her throat and felt her cheeks warm only slightly. Was he purring now? Lightly, if at all, just enough for a calm and listening felis to hear. Sakura's blush faded away.

The warm air wafted over her ears again, and this time the sensation was almost close to soothing. It was more than enough to lull her half-awake mind back to sleep and all mind processes moving about at that time halted in their tracks and prepared for sleep again. Sakura closed her eyes, glad and content and warm, and draped an arm over the prince's hip, because she felt it a _right _thing to do.

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November 23rd, 12:44 PM

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After hours of careful, secret study in Suna's library, in the hidden panel in the wall Kiba had shown her some six years back, and some equally careful and detailed mental recollection and a little bit of irritated biting on a few pieces of bark, Sakura felt quite sure.

She, a female felis like and unlike any other, was in heat, and it was _damned uncomfortable _(just like four of the five books said it would be).

It was as natural a thing as clouds in the sky, as Shizune would say, but Sakura, having had her nagging "human" perspective on life as long as she could remember, found it the most unnatural thing she'd yet encountered. It was a sign of a potential felis mother wanting to have kits and if the female let her hormones run their course she'd be flirting with the nearest good-looking male she could find, and heat-induced flirting was not always as innocent as the regular sort. Sakura had, in the past day or two, not had any intention of flirting with anyone. She hoped it would stay this way, and that she would stay composed or distracted enough to resist the temptation.

Thus far, the only signs her body and mind had shown were fleeting but numerous thoughts of her mate wearing no shirt, and this had started last night when she'd noticed him half bare, so had logical reasoning. She had not yet been awake or in heat six hours and Sakura wished desperately it would end before she embarrassed herself or hurt some innocent bystander. She wished this while bending a metal spoon between her fangs.

Sitting there in that space in between the inner and outer library walls, Sakura was able to sit up straight and stretch her legs out comfortably, and could have taken a nap there were she not feeling her own rising sexual tension. Her tail twitched almost on cue every forty-two seconds and she consistently felt the need to bite something, hence why she'd nabbed a spoon from her mother and aunt's cottage and was using it as a chew toy.

Did he know? she wondered for the first time, and froze. Sakura's mind, awhirl with information her five books had given her, the books that sat in her secret spot with her at her feet right that moment, withdrew a snippet from the first one she'd read: _The female in heat emanates a sharper version of her usual scent which is detectable only to the keenest of male felis. The reaction varies from male to male but generally includes increased attention and affection from casual friends and strangers, and increased possessive marking from close friends and mates._

Possessive marking encircled almost all attention Sasori had ever given her: licking and biting of the feline ears, grooming, kissing and nuzzling and anything else that had the potential of making her blush. But he'd been doing most of those things since the first day she'd known him. Thinking of which attentions were new and which went back for years seemed to cost too much thinking. Sakura, usually happy to sit and think about nothing and everything and all in between, was feeling too agitated to think of anything at all. But—wait—

In fact, after they'd both gotten dressed this morning, he'd walked her to the front castle gate, where Hinata was waiting for her friend so they could spend a morning talking with her parents. Kiba had walked up the path only a few seconds after and started saying something about his elder sister. Sakura had been feeling too itchy and pissy to listen with more than half an ear. And during Kiba's jabbering, she could barely, just barely, recall a noise that had also irritated her. Not a purring, but something like it…growling? Had Sasori been growling? Had he had their tails twined at the time, too?

And she was back to being angry and thoughtless again. The spoon she'd been chewing cracked into two between her fangs and she spat out the rounded part of it and crushed the handle in her fist, both with the strength of a female's heat and of her naturally-given physical prowess. Now with nothing left to annihilate, Sakura was feeling more and more irritated.

Was that was heat did to most felis women? Made them angry and filled with a need to obliterate something? Or was it just because this was her very first heat? Was she going to do something horribly rash and become a mother at eighteen? She'd wanted a few years alone with her mate before any kits were involved. (And anyway, wasn't it better to be married before kits were involved?)

Too many questions. Not enough spoons to chew on.

The next thing Sakura knew, she was standing somewhere in the castle, completely bewildered. She felt her hair, ruffled from running two or three miles to the castle, most like. Briefly her agitation disappeared and Sakura wished fervently that she hadn't hurt anyone on her mad rush over here.

Naturally as water in a river, of course, her feet took her to the largest of the tower's studies. The room was larger than the entirety of Tsunade's cottage in height, width and length, and two of the four walls were made completely of book-stuffed shelves. The third was taken up by a wall-sized window and solar mobile, and the fourth, partially eaten up by the door and partially by maps and notes the various visitors to the room had scrawled randomly there.

Like he almost always was when he took to his documentation work here, Sasori reclined like any relaxed jungle cat in the satin lounge chair, over a hundred "return service demanded" folded packets and letters stacked next to him, three or four of which he held in one hand. The other usually held some sort of expensive feather pen, but now he held nothing. He looked up just after Sakura opened the door unnecessarily loudly, and his chocolate eyes shone. Sakura, not quite pissed off enough to not think straight, realized what it meant. _'He knows. He absolutely does.' _

"What's my kit doing here?" he asked quietly as though there was someone to answer him. Sakura walked across the room, making sure she did nothing but walk. She did not stalk or saunter or jog or dash. She wished to look nonchalant as possible when she asked her impending question. Sakura crouched down to be on level with him, though with the height of the lounge chair he was still above her. Flatly, hoping not to sound irritated, Sakura asked, "Why did you sleep shirtless last night?" He raised a brow in question but she didn't miss that millimeter-sized upward inflection of his upper lip. Yes he did absolutely know.

Without changing her blank and neutral expression, Sakura grasped the collar of Sasori's shirt and pulled him down closer. Their noses almost touched. "Don't smirk at me, prince. Presently I'm feeling like I need to chew on something. It can be an apple or a spoon or your tail." And of all reactions, he purred, purred and chuckled! Sakura felt as though she should have expected it, but she didn't.

"I _said, _don't smirk at me!"

"I knew I was right. You're in heat."

"No shit."

"You're angrier than most."

"No. Shit."

"Well, there's the reason I slept shirtless. To see if you were in heat or not." The prince's eyes glowed like molten lava. "And you are." Sakura's eyes were also raging like lava, but a different sort of lava, you must understand. It took a minute or two to understand the thought process the prince had used last night, and another half-minute to cool and compose herself. Being cool and composed was exactly what he didn't want, and now she felt more than ever her childhood dream-scheme of making the prince disown her absolutely needed to come to fruition. Within the next few days. Before her heat was over. When she spoke next, she could tell her complete calmness irritated him. "I thought it would be a few years before…me being in heat mattered."

"You're worrying about kits?"

"That's one worry."

"There will not be any until we both want them. And until then—" As Sakura had his shirt collar in her fist, he grabbed hers, albeit more gently. His pen was tossed to an insignificant corner. "You're mineand I don't share you." The ensuing kiss released all the possessiveness our handsome prince had been graciously hiding since Sakura had returned to Fell. Ever since she had paid nearly as much attention to Kiba Inuzuka, among others, as to the prince himself. It was perfectly reasonable jealously, a felis wanting his dream-beloved for himself, and it escalated into masculine pride when his sudden attack forced a pleased mewl out of her. He didn't revel in that victory for long, though. He took complete advantage of her low guard and ravaged every bit of her face and neck his lips could find. She fell backward onto the floor and he obsessively followed, moving himself on top of her and kissing again and again, biting ears and twining tails and purring.

His tongue found her skin again, licking in a way that was only half chaste. Perhaps it was because he had dreamed of her so many years ago, but even without her rather helpful mewling and blushing, without any signal, he knew she enjoyed being groomed. It was less than half chaste when he moved closer to her collarbone and her little claws stuck into his arms with a gasp he'd heard ten times in the past minute. At last he left her panting and moved back to see the adorable blushing creature he'd brought out of hiding. She feebly tried to distract him from the way she looked by turning her head away and gasping, "You're the one…who…who should be in heat, you damned animal!"

Sasori gave his reply in the form of grinding his body against hers. "Madly," Sakura added with a scoff, again trying to distract him.

And he agreed: "Madly."

"Hey," she said, sitting up some and still panting. While his tongue busily attended to her fingers his eyes roved lazily to hers. There appeared to be a true question in her this time, not something meant for feeble distraction. "Are you a virgin?" Sasori almost laughed. "No."

Sakura did laugh. "Then that explains why—why you seem to know what you're doing here."

"I do what I want to, what I feel like doing. Nothing more."

"No planning, no analyzing?"

"Very little." He nipped her to try to stop the talking, prepared to bite harder the second time.

"It's…so unlike you." Sasori stopped a inch from his second nip when he heard this. "Here's your 'human' thought process again. I thought you'd gotten rid of that." Sakura had always had such beliefs: Eighteen was too young to be married—that wasn't even what most humans thought, gods only knew why she'd begun thinking that one—a man three centuries her senior was too old to be her lover, fate set by mother nature could be altered at any time. And, as shown by her previous remark, fate set in stone long ago could not change the way a person acted. All of it was untrue, and it was only her attracting naiveté that kept such beliefs in her head.

"Are you still thinking I'll inexplicably decide not to marry you? The same idea you had ten years ago?" To emphasize this he tapped his fingers on her neck and collar, places he had just bitten and marked in the way any male felis would mark his mate.

The defeat in her innocent eyes was surprisingly great. One would think she was a general at the finale of an epic battle, with an enemy officer forcing her to surrender before her own army. Sasori decided he should have suspected that. She had put ten years of her life, four-fifths of her little life, ten years of pure and raw effort, into trying to flee from him. And here she was lying underneath him bearing the sensual marks of his teeth and lips. This was the fall of one of Sakura's greatest moral pillars.

"No," she said with even greater dignity than he would have thought. "I don't think that anymore, old man."

He tried to distract her from her defeat by playing her old game of names. "That's very good, my little one." Sakura gave a little growl at hearing the name that hadn't touched her ears for at least six years. All the same, when Sasori moved closer to her, she sat up a bit more and willingly nuzzled him. "_This _is what fate intended for me," he said.

Sakura scoffed and her tail flicked against his cheek. "For you only?" she repeated, smiling.

The prince had no problem explaining now that she was complacent of everything. "This is why you were created for me. For times like…now." In the pause between the last few words he surprised her for the second time with a kiss charged with possessiveness, and pride that the kit had now accepted that she was forever his. He pulled away to give the last word of the sentence and returned to his post at her pink lips, giving meaning to all feelings that made him too furious to speak.

At long last he allowed his younger love to breathe again, to pant and blush and twitch her lovely, sensitive ears again. He leaned his forehead onto hers. "You were made for me." He said this simple fact with pride. "This is why you have no father, why you were a virgin birth—"

"My mother…wasn't a virgin when—mmhm!—" Sasori licked her lips to silence her.

"Look at yourself. You're perfect. You have no father because you are the daughter of all nature. And you were given to _me_—"

"And not my own mother?" Sakura chuckled, and artfully dodged when her punishment bite for interrupting came too close. "To me_._" he repeated. "Not to Kiba, nor Shino—" She stuck her claws on his neck, in perfect position to rip his throat out, conveying the felis message of _"shut up." _

"Kiba_," _she repeated slowly, "has been asking me for advice on how to court Hinata since we were _eleven. _Two years ago when I was living in Morgan I got a letter from him describing his first kiss with Hinata and three or four of his boyish fantasies about her, if you get my meaning. I doubt he'd tell me those unless he considered me nothing short of the greatest _friend _he ever had."

Only the most remote loosening of his tail from hers gave any signal that he'd even heard her talk. He certainly went on as though she'd said nothing. "You weren't given to Kiba, nor Shino, nor Deidara nor anyone else." Sakura leaned back, and used her arms to pull herself backward still when Sasori came stalking forward. "_My _little one." He was licking his fangs. Sakura felt her head and her back bump foolishly into a coffee table. The predator halted inches before her.

His look was threatening. He breathed into her felis ear—it smelled like cinnamon—and Sakura felt the absurdly hot air in her furred ear like nothing she'd ever felt. She clamped a hand over her mouth to silence herself and Sasori ripped it away. She wished for it fervently, so fervently, when she felt his tongue licking not the furred outside, but the inside twice as hypersensitive as its opposite. She wanted to move her other hand over her mouth, but even though this one was free at her side, she couldn't make it so much as twitch, and that was all the worse. It took longer than either of them thought for her iron resolve to give and she cried out with all-new pleasure. The instincts within the prince's mind, a thousand times older than he, heard the gorgeous sound of his lover and demanded full fruition. He was eager and willing to give it.

The table behind Sakura was pushed away with one hand and she to the floor again, her lips crushed again by something that, again, was new, and raw, and seeking something her internal naiveté could not understand. Sasori broke his ravaging kiss and held his mate close. Their tails twined so tightly Sakura could not move hers if she tried. Almost madly, the prince of Fell whispered, "Do you want to play with me, love?"

She sensed this bordering-madness thing of his, sensed it as something ancient and frightening, and yet not dangerous. It was a curious thing but she daren't go closer to inspect it. It reached out to the contrasting innocence within Sakura and she felt it, like a physical thing, as clearly as one of her own feelings, wanting her and wishing her ever closer. "Are you allright?" was all she could reply with, for he may not have been allright with this thing inside him, this thing that was not dangerous, yet unfamiliar and dark.

His reply was to kiss her on her forehead. For a moment Sakura felt like a little kit again, safe and secure among the grown adults, and she realized that was reply enough. He repeated his previous question and Sakura replied as wisely as she could with, "…Yes," with an upward inflection, so it sounded rather like a question.

"Thank you," he said suavely, the same as he would to a guest at a cocktail party. His tongue touched the inside of her ear again and she got her hand over her mouth for a moment or so before her hand was grabbed again, and by that time he was at eye level once more. "Please play a game with me that every felis plays."

"How?" she asked, pushing away the hand that had been trying to scratch her under the chin like one's pet. "Every last member of the species knows. By the time you leave this room, I hope you do, too." He stood up with the strength of both of them, pulling Sakura up and shoving her with one hand towards the door. Sakura staggered, steeled her shaking legs, and looked back at him as though he truly were mad. "I should…leave, then?"

"When you close the door behind you, I'll come looking for you." This was his normal voice now, the sophisticated and artistic universal man who knocked his friends unconscious by smashing champagne glasses on their heads. "If I find you, I'll pounce on you." Sakura almost asked "and then?" but saw him licking his lips, saw a briefly bared fang, and she drew up her plan faster than lightning. She could pull on the door just so, and it would move slowly, slowly, slower and slower as it got closer to its lock in the wall. It would give her twenty seconds at best instead of the typical one or two it took one door to be pulled closed. More than enough time to find one of her compartments in the castle walls to escape through. She'd leave Suna if she needed to, go past the town where she and her friends had stolen the carnival animals so long ago, farther than her original home in the Wide Plains. This was _it. _

She was behind the door now and she could see the muscles in his legs tense as could be, prepared to leap forward. She gave an outrageously weak pull on the door knob and dashed.

Sakura's adrenaline pounded as she rounded her first corner. Had Sasori even chased her, even in a simple children's game of tag? She couldn't recall. What she could recall was his birth-given ability: the telekinetic power, the "puppetry," that could move anything…sometimes. There were completely random occasions when he had pointed at a river and halted its flow, and pointed at a leaf and could not flip it over.

The door whisked open behind her just as Sakura slammed shut the seamless, nearly invisible door in the wall and began crawling backward. She heard him sprinting almost soundlessly through halls and doorways, exact ones she'd taken. Of course! He was following her scent, same as any half-brained felis would do to find someone. Would it lead him to the exact location of the door? Would he scent her hands on the almost imperceptible opening buttons and find them? She heard him halt at the location of the hidden door but he stayed there a long time, a minute or so after Sakura left the compartment and entered the second one that would take her out of the castle.

She may not have been able to escape her inevitable bond with the prince, but this did not mean she had to give herself submissively to him and his suddenly-ravaging, perverted mind. In return for ruining one of her life goals, he was going to go through some trouble before he caught her!

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November 23rd, 8:49 PM

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Sakura ripped open the window to the prince's personal chamber and sped inside before her momentum ran out and she fell backward four stories to the ground. She closed it behind her but didn't lock it, and dropped onto her bed, the bed that was the prince's but also now hers by law, quite exhausted. Fear and self-satisfaction bubbled within her in equal measure. She knew he'd be following her scent and entering after her probably within minutes, but couldn't help but feel good about her success anyway.

She'd spent all day leading Sasori on a wild goose chase throughout Suna. Somehow most every adult citizen seemed to know what they were doing. Whenever she sped by a townsperson they were usually smiling or shaking their head or laughing at her. It was all good-humored and sporty behavior they showed her, nothing but approval.

More than once she'd led Sasori flat into a brick wall and forced him to use her scent to locate the entryway to whatever secret passageway or compartment she'd used to escape. He'd only been able to find her little escape routes twice and only once did he enter it. He entered only because it was large enough for even the hugest adult and retreated back to the city surface when he heard the hissing of at least ten large lizards. It was absolute fun to confound him like that, sitting behind a trap door and listening as he attempted to find it. Once she'd dropped a walnut on his head from a rooftop three stories up. She'd dropped down to the ground just as he made a single, huge leap to the roof and Sakura giggled herself to death as he lost his way among the maze of rooftops Sakura had learned to navigate years ago.

She'd borrowed Ms. Mitarashi's nine pet cats and arranged the sleepy beasts into an arrow on Ms. Mitarashi's rooftop. The arrow pointed back towards the castle but Sakura's scent clearly went the other way. Not long after she'd brought Kiba's family horse, the mare Feathering, out of the Stables in the fields and into the city. The mare had trotted gaily around the city and had Sakura's scent all over her, stronger even that Sakura herself, confusing the prince each time the two identical scents moved close to each other.

Half a dozen other schemes had gone on as well and they had been great fun, but to have that fun Sakura had skipped eating lunch and supper and was quite ready to simply go to sleep. If she was lucky, she'd fall asleep within the minute. Sasori wouldn't dare wake her up, he always liked watching her sleep—

The window opened and Sakura cursed and bit down angrily on the bedsheets near her face. It closed and not a second after she yelped. He'd mercilessly pounced on her and she could feel one of his hands on her hip, trying to flip her over onto her back where she'd be vulnerable. She grasped the bedsheets and growled with the effort, even with her fine physical prowess, of staying in her current position against his strength. She felt the black folds of his winter cloak, felt the section near the neck where he had unbuttoned it and felt it on her ear, her human-shape ear, as he growled playfully.

Because that's what he was still doing, she found it a little hard to believe: playing. What with spending the entire day trying to keep him off her trail, it was easy to forget that it had been a silly game from the beginning. It was a game that dark and predatory side of him had proposed, but it was still a game.

A skilled movement of his fingers under her shirt had Sakura instinctively clamping a hand over her mouth to silence a cry of pleasure. But it had been mere tickling, there was no cry to silence but a gasping laugh, and there was one less hand keeping her down. Sakura was successfully flipped onto her back and Sasori successfully attacked her neck with his fangs and renewed the marks there that had faded hours ago.

He was reluctant to move away any distance. "I win. But it took much too long." he rumbled. Sakura tried to flip onto her stomach again and wasn't allowed. Sasori grasped both her hands and kept them harnessed at her sides so that her body made a shape something like a cross. Sakura, too aware of how truly vulnerable she was now, said, "Are you allright _now?" _

"Am I allright?"

"For the second time today, _you _are the one who should be in heat! You've been acting like an animal since I went into your study today!" She ignored his interjection of, "I'm not a human to start with, Sakura," and went on, "You were never this amorous, not even when you tried to molest me in your sleep! What's wrong with you?"

Sakura was pulled so that she sat up, a hand with black-painted claws supporting her back. "I'm doing what I wished I could do at Lake of Rage. What I would have if you had not been unresponsive."

"Unresponsive? I walked right into your arms after—"

"After you accused me of assaulting you."

"…Well, you did."

Sasori's lips were close enough to brush hers when he spoke next. "That should be taken as a sign of how much I missed you."

"…"

"You're my bonded. I miss you every moment I can't see you."

"What was wrong with you when I was sitting against the table leg?" Sakura questioned suddenly, her eyes avoiding his. "You shoved it away and smashed me to the floor. And your kiss felt different. Almost violent." Sasori knew the exact moment she was talking about, but listened still. "I was feeling something and I know it wasn't one of my own feelings so don't go saying it was lust for you!" Sasori purred all the same. Sakura wouldn't likely recognize lust if she felt it. "I thought it was…welcoming and predatory at once. Felt like a trap. I thought perhaps you'd know."

"Of course. That was me."

"It didn't feel like you."

"It was. It was repressed emotion, instinct, that I'd been waiting to show you. It's been with me since the moment I saw you back on my land again. It's exactly what I feel for you."

"You _are _in heat, old man. And if not that, you're obsessed."

"You're a newcomer to this part of life. You don't know what obsession really is. I'll guide you..." And simple as that, he began guiding. Sakura knew exactly what lessons she would be guided on and used her leanness and cleverness to slip backwards as far as she could with her hands still being held, and she dodged her first lovebite of the night. Sasori was most displeased and pulled her back underneath him.

He lay nearly on top of her for several minutes, unblinking, glowering, keeping their gazes locked. He let Sakura's hands drop and they lay still at her sides. Only his chocolate eyes kept her beneath him. Gods only know how long it was before either of them moved. It was the prince in the end, and he lowered himself to tenderly nuzzle his love's neck.

"Are you afraid of me?" The reciprocating shake of her head was weak but he believed it anyway. "Then why do you keep retreating from this?"

Sakura looked away again, her felis ears moving down against her skull. Rarely did she allow them to do that, and when she did it conveyed great meaning to her next action. Sasori waited and did not prod her. Sakura crossed her legs and stared gravely at her bare feet and stilled, furry tail. "I know exactly what I mean," she said. "But…I…I can't put it to words without…" She looked away yet again with a delectable blush on her face and the prince had to use some amount of restraint to keep himself from pouncing on her then and there. He didn't dare purr for fear of making her think he'd guessed what she wanted to say.

When she began, "You've been in a situation…something like this before and…" he did in fact have a good guess as to what she wanted to say. Looking angry at herself, Sakura scooted forward and put a hand on the redhead's neck, pulling him down so she could whisper in his ear. "You know what you're doing here, but I don't. I don't know how to please you." And she drew back and looked away again.

Sasori's tail wrapped around her left leg and that alone dragged her entire body closer to him. He put an index finger on her forehead. _"That's _what this innocent mind has been thinking?" he half-growled. Sakura averted her eyes still but said, "You've seen more than me. Reasonably, you should know more—"

"Such humility for your elder," he chuckled. "But I don't see why you would worry about that. You do what you want to, show me what you want, and nothing more. There is no correct way. Now, what do you want?" He saw the near-imperceptible twitch of her lip and began suspecting. Her next comment, with all due respect, rather astounded him.

"I want you to take off your cloak."

Every instinct and logic center in the prince's mind agreed that it would be a pleasure to take off the cloak. He thought of saying, "Yes, queen," but thought he oughtn't make her blush any more than she was. Yet.

His mate needed guidance and confidence. After he'd given those, she would learn the truth of the dominating beast fate had stuck her with.

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December 10th, 1:33 PM

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Ino and Ami, in their finest courtesan gowns, sultry bells and perfumes only the richest of folk could buy, stood fuming under the café's canopy. It was a cold day in Suna and frost had tipped the grass that morning and the first snow of winter was expected that very day. Sakura, who sat opposite Ino and Ami in her winter-athletic outfit that complimented her already flattering body, should know. She had woken up early and played the "Song of Storms" to the rising sun and to her mate some fifty-four times.

For about twenty seconds the courtesan women sat with only the table supporting them, and they almost fell out of their chairs and flat into the street. (The courtesan friends didn't know why they had chosen an outdoor table in this winter weather anyway!) Ino, the one who was slightly more together, grasped the edges of the mahogany table. Her hatred for the younger felis girl had only grown in the past years. This girl was mated to the the prince of Fell, the most powerful man on Earth, and had him wrapped around her finger, a mastery of music under her belt at age eighteen, and a natural, child-like beauty that was so coveted by females around the world. And she was so _accursedly special _that if everything else wasn't enough, she had been a virgin birth, had no father and was, so said the prince—the prince of Fell himself!—the daughter of nature itself.

Ino, furious like she had never been before, filled with a passionate anger much more powerful than any passionate pleasure a man could give her, was somehow stable enough to say, "Can you…repeat that, Sakura?"

Sakura, her precious Versace violin in her lap, sipped mint tea out of her china cup and her eyes, those strange eyes that had always confounded Ino, flashed.

"What I said was, Yes, Ino, I did _ride _him and it was a very thrilling ride."

Sakura sat up then, fished a tip out of her pocket and left the courtesan women at the Suna café. Inwardly, so that no one would ever hear her, Sakura blessed mother nature and fate and all heavenly beings connected to them, for letting her have a life, a mate, friends, a home, so absolutely grand.

Also she half-heartedly apologized to them for being so bitchy as a child and not accepting her mate in the first place even though it had been one of her biggest life goals not to do so, thank you.

And _something, somewhere, _purred.

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Das Ende, liebe Leute.

Translate that for fun. It's German.

You know what else you should do? You should hear Sakura's "Song of Storms" on violin. It's on youtube! Search "Zelda violin medley" in the search bar and click the second video in the list. It's the one posted by a user called KristalKleer. The Song of Storms begins after about 28 seconds. And I thank all of you who go through the trouble of actually finding and listening to it.

This is the seventh and final chapter of Time That Passed. It's been fun, man. This time I really do feel a need to apologize for Sasori because he is crazily loving this chapter and as even our narrator said, bordering madness in his love. Don't we all wish for a guy like him. Sometimes.

I may add more comments later, but again I have to walk my dog before it gets dark out. And it's Sunday and I have two presentations to prepare for this week. One of which cannot be spoken in English. Insert Fear.

Ta…Storm.


	8. VIII

Those of you who found the poll in my profile, many months ago, will probably have been expecting this extra chapter to TTP. At the time I typed the last chapter I called it the last because, while I had the idea of creating Sasori and Sakura's children I wasn't sure if I could do it all that well, so said "this story is done" to ensure nobody would be expecting anything more only to be disappointed. I guess now, months later…I have. Did I decide to show their cute liddle kits or just give them more alone time for you to read about?

Meh. You'll find out.

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November 24th, 6:01 AM

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Was it wrong to regret your first time? Even when it had been with the only person you'd ever wanted to be with? Surely only if you were disgustingly, pitiably childish inside. Right?

Did it make you greedy or heartless when you wanted your virginity back? Was it wrong to think that virginity was what separated girls from women? Kits from adults? Adorable from attractive? Was it strange to think that sex _wasn't _casual, that it was something to be…embarrassed about, even a little frightened of, even after you'd already performed it yourself? And what if your lover found out these opinions and hated you for them?

The worries that would only haunt a kit, that would only haunt Sakura Hokage, drifted like ominous ghosts all through her mind. The most recent one stayed on and grew: What if Sasori woke and sensed something of her thoughts? What if he sensed that she regretted sleeping with him? He'd be—horrified, heartbroken, furious? Sakura couldn't guess how she'd get through the rest of the day with these thoughts distracting her, how she'd get through the rest of her centuries-long life!

The _sun _wasn't even up yet.

'_My god…' _she thought to herself wonderingly. She saw her tunic on the floor almost near enough for her tail to reach down and touch. _'If I get dressed right now and run, what will he think? What if he wakes up while I'm dressing? What will I say?'_

She looked to the side and just a little ways up and found a familiar redhead laying on his back, surprisingly more than six inches away from her. She smelled his familiar cinnamon scent, tried not to blush at his un-familiarly naked body. (Also tried not to remember how much noise they'd made last night, failed, blushed, and pinned her felis ears to skull.)

A purposeful rustle of sheets. Not a sign of someone sleeping.

"You love me."

Mind awhirl, Sakura scraped together a plan to not let her lover know her previous embarrassing thoughts. She turned her head towards him, saw his eyes. They had always looked like chocolate but now they seemed to be, how to describe them—ah! Dark chocolate is what they resembled now, boiling with seriousness and pride and love so strong one could say it bordered on madness—as it had before. Sakura used his words to her advantage to further her plan. She made her own eyes contrastingly bright, wry and carefree.

"Is that news to you?"

"You love me."

"Of course."

His lips curved upward the slightest bit. His eyes remained the same. One of his hands lifted and two fingers flexed. Sakura was pulled closer to him with the force of a magnet and she half-heartedly cursed that "puppetry" he could do. The same hand that had executed his birth-given ability brushed a stray lock of cherry hair out of his kit's eyes.

"After you ripped my belt off—" Sakura had absolutely no recollection of doing that, but had something new to be embarrassed of now. She interrupted as fast as she could, "I don't remember doing that." Her most prominent memory of last night was laying underneath him. Even in the first stages when she required "guidance," even when he let her take the lead, he didn't allow her to lay on top of him. Somehow that memory was just about as significant as climax which had been, in her own inexperienced words, indescribably _wonderful. _But it's not as though she would say that aloud. "Also I don't think it's a big deal that 'newbies' would go crazy during sex. Honestly." The sound he made at that comment was something like a scoff. Awfully weird for one such as Sasori.

"If you're embarrassed, the best thing to do would be to say so."

"Curiously, that's not what I would think. In fact, I'd be inclined to turn away."

"If you turn away, I am inclined to move closer. Quite counterproductive."

"Only because you can't take a hint. I remember the days of subtle advances! Suddenly the soft and sophisticated aristocrat's movements are gone, and _this _occurs."

The last comment was meant as a joke but when he grasped her chin between two long fingers and forced her to look at him his eyes showed little humor. "I think you're regretting something."

Her hopes dashed, Sakura still struggled to hide the thoughts she'd had upon waking. "I think waking before sunrise is obscuring your logic, Your Majesty."

"Don't call me that." The command was stern. "Your feelings are in your eyes. So strong you can't hope to hide them." They both knew that had also been the situation last night but neither said it, for it was blazingly obvious. "You want your virginity back, I assume? You feel intercourse makes you adult but don't think you are ready for the adult's world?"

Because she knew such information would never pass from him to anyone else, Sakura allowed her barriers to fall. Her tail curled as she said, "…Yes."

The hand that had brushed her hair back did so again for that naughty strand that wanted to cover up his precious one's eye. Some indeterminate amount of time later he murmured, "You're so young."

At this, Sakura raised a surprised brow, for she had always, flawlessly always, been the one to make a fuss about the centuries-wide gap in their ages. Sometimes she had said it playfully, but no matter her tone she had always meant it. All Sasori had ever done in response was tell her that age mattered little. This meant that he was taking the issue seriously for the first time in at least a decade, for the first time ever.

After, again, some indeterminate time had passed, he moved himself over her, tangling the sheets and coming close to exposing his lower half. Sakura wisely kept her sheet slightly above chest level and had one hand over it so he could not be naughty and rip it away suddenly. But there was no naughtiness in his expression now. "You needn't have such worries. You are new and young, and you need me to guide you." Within herself, Sakura both swooned and rolled her eyes. He did everything she could ever ask of him, and in doing so, treated her like a kit. "All your fears are normal, and if you have any others, I will help you conquer them. Even if you do not tell me what they are."

"True," she said, because there was little to say to a such a statement. "Because you'll always make your level of affection difficult to compete with. Same as I'll always keep some things hidden from you." Her eyes darkened with genuine apology and she put one arm over his shoulder. "I'm sorry. It's part of me to do it. I promise they won't be earth-shattering secrets."

"Mm." he said noncommittally, and nuzzled himself softly into her swan neck. "As it is part of me to feel complete with my kit. That, neither of us can hope to change."

Sakura put a hand on the back of his head and scoffed, "Gods, no."

"Tell me that, Sakura."'

"Hm?"

"Tell me you're mine."

"…I'm your kit."

And that made it painfully obvious for both of them. Not only had she said the wrong thing, she had paused before saying it and even wobbled the sentence, like she didn't believe it herself. The prince's eyes narrowed with dark curiosity and some warning. He moved his head closer, parallel, to hers. His breath flowed on her cheeks when he spoke. "You're mine, Sakura. Mine."

His mate's responding grunt was toneless and quiet and could have meant anything.

This did not make Sasori angry, but there was no amount of joy to be seen in his expression. With a curious growl in his voice, he said, "Why do you—"

"I don't feel anyone belongs to anyone; it sounds like a form of slavery to me." his pink-haired love interrupted. "I don't believe mates 'belong' to each other. They want to be together because it is their choice. I never believed I belonged to Tsunade or Shizune." Sasori blinked in surprise and his tail stopped its mid-air curve. "What's that look for? I stayed with Tsunade my entire life because she's my mother and I love her. Not because I'm wearing a collar with her name on it."

Having never heard such a theory before, being one of the few living beings on earth who had ever heard of such a theory, Sasori gazed into his mate's wild eyes. He searched there for a hint, for understanding. He saw only the determination and cleverness that had been in her eyes for years, that had been there since before she'd ever known him—before she'd ever known him… "How long have you thought this?" he asked.

"For as long as I can remember anything."

"The same amount of time that you've believed I am too old for you? The same amount of time you've believed eighteen is too young to be married?" Sasori recalled each and every one of her ridiculous theories that not even lunatics in the asylums believed.

"I think so, yes. I can't remember when I started thinking them, so they may have all come up at the same time for all I know!" The sentence ended with a little shriek. He'd surprised her with a violent kiss.

He had her head trapped between his hands, same as her body was trapped under his, and his fingers burrowing just under short waves of soft, cherry hair. She couldn't move and couldn't breathe and Sasori may not have cared. When he at last drew back for breath Sakura's eyes were wild and bright and shocked and he knew his were contrastingly dark with want, but he didn't dwell on this. His lips fell back down on hers almost aggressively. "Mine," he growled, and _'Mine,' _he thought. Or did he only growl it? Or did he only think it, or do both? Did it matter?

Gods only know how long he did that. All that is known is that when he at last stopped, Sakura turned breathlessly to the side, cleavage-covering sheets (almost) forgotten, and listened to her mate quietly explain that he'd repeat that entire process again unless she admitted she belonged to him (but did not mention he probably would repeat it and add to it even if she did admit it).

Smiling like a happy kit, Sakura refused.

Her punishment is not appropriate to be elaborated upon here.

666

November 24th, 8:01 AM

666

Because some fool dependent on opium had stolen some valuable golden-hoofed mares and been clever enough to hide the evidence and been accepted as "not guilty" and charged again and trialed over and over again for stealing more and more golden-hoofed horses that it was eventually decided by the Gathered Judges of Fell's Court of Law that the prince himself would listen to and give a verdict on the case...said prince had to get out of bed and leave his lover naked and fatigued as a starved slave in the wee hours of the morning.

When Sakura woke up and found herself alone the first thing she attempted to do was grab her black bra and fell out of the bed directly onto her face. She realized that the rumor she'd heard for years was true.

Sakura had spent half the night and part of the morning in the throes of passion. Now Sakura could not walk.

But of course, it was made a new goal—to replace the one she'd had in mind since age seven—to spend the rest of the day walking around. Sasori would see her walking, know that by all laws of physics she _shouldn't _be walking, and be mildly pissed that an entire night of his efforts on her body showed nothing, and he'd have nothing to show off what a literal beast he'd been the previous night. After some ten minutes, her legs were fully mobile again and there was only a menial "unfamiliar" sensation in her stomach area which could easily be ignored. Now, where to go now that she was no longer a virgin? Hm.

Hinata would blush too much to talk of sex, and her mother and aunt would do nothing but squeal like Ino had in the olden days, and ask how many decades of waiting they had to spend before being rewarded with grandchildren. Shino wouldn't really understand, being male, Tenten would probably hold her calm even at this news (maybe that made Tenten the best choice…?) and the other friends she had in the royal city weren't nearly as close as her special circle. Then who…

Kiba. She and Kiba had always been determined and devil-may-care like herself. He would…hopefully…understand.

She'd thought that all through her walk through the city, all through her greetings to residents who waved at her and said good morning, all through saying hello to Kiba's mother—his father being a victim of black fever when he was an infant—going up to his room, finding him asleep, closing and locking the door and then blowing into his felis ear to wake him up. She clamped a hand over his mouth and stared down at her oldest friend with dark and serious eyes. "I don't know who else to talk about this with. I don't even know if I _should _talk about it."

"You an' the prince had crazy rabbit sex last night?"

Like the innocent she still was, Sakura stared and blinked.

"You did, you _did, _oh gods above! I was making a stupid guess, but I'm right, aren't I? Hey, did it hurt? Hinata's drilled it into my brain that penetration hurts all women."

While Kiba stood up and made his bed and brushed his teeth, Sakura explained that the pain would probably be distracting if one was human, but a felis woman could handle it if she bit her tongue a bit. Yes, Kiba, climax is just as good as they say, no, it doesn't mean whores are justified in their profession; yes, I was _very _embarrassed flaunting my bare body; yes, the amount of wetness involved is almost unbelievable, the weaker folk could drown; oh, gods, I _know, _that part was _weird! _

After the two old friends had sorted out all the sexual rumors they'd heard (eavesdropped) when they were children, Sakura artfully switched the subject over to the relationship between her two best friends. Kiba was eager to give her any information she wanted, seeing as he thought her help in the courtship was as good as required by law.

"Shino will be my best man if you'll be my bridesmaid."

"Kiba, I think the wife gets to choose the bridesmaid."

"Well, who do you think she's gonna choose? Us three are like freakin' Siamese triplets! We were even when you lived over in Konik…uh…what's that area called again? I know the town was Morgan—"

"Twilight Wood, dumbass."

"You're hurting my feelings! _Mother! _Sakura's hurting my feelings!"

On it went.

666

November 24th, 9:57 PM

666

"I'm trying to read."

"Hn."

"Your Majesty, may I continue reading my book?"

"Certainly."

"Can you move to my side and not in front of me so your arms don't block my view?"

"No."

"I can't read if you're sitting in front of me trying to feel me up."

"The term is 'pet.' To pet someone implies affection."

"I'm at a very intense chase scene! Can I just finish it undisturbed, this half-page?"

"The book won't run away."

"Neither will you!"

"True as well."

"Dammit, just—stop that! Here, out of the kindness of my heart, I'll move." And Sakura, presently trying to enjoy herself in the library the royal residents of the castle had been collecting for and polishing for centuries, plopped into her mate's lap. Said mate was very happy, pressed the female's back tighter against his chest and sat in the leather-skin couch for about four pages. When Sakura began the fifth page, he grew tired of having his kit and his lap and doing nothing about it. Since he was in a more innocently playful mood than was typical, Sasori looked to where her pink tail dangled over the edge of the couch, and used his own to flick it back and forth.

"Excuse me. Trying to read."

"I'm bored."

"You're _bored?_" It was such a…a Deidara thing to be bored! Nine days out of ten, any member of royalty didn't have time to waste being bored. If the prince of Fell found time between his various trips, council meetings, bill signings and political wars, he did not grow _bored; _he grew _impatient with the dullness of time. _And if he was _bored, _something had to be done to change that before pigs took flight. "Well...would you still be bored if I described the dream I had about you?"

Now, as the knower of everything, I can tell you exactly what the prince assumed the dream had been like. He was quite wrong, I can tell you.

The innocent moved herself from her mate's lap to face him. Her tail curled ominously like a scythe over her shoulder. "Someone was harassing me: one of those types of men who uses people, and threatens till he gets what he wants. He groped me in public—like I was his whore—and because he almost always did it in public, I almost always told him no, with as little violence as possible. And one day when he'd had enough to me telling him off, he grabbed my arm and tried to force me out the door. When I got his arm off, his nail scratched me and I began bleeding. You saw this small cut, found out its origin, and you killed him." The lack of any reaction was disturbing, so Sakura went on, hoping to get one.

"He was in a room with two other men, playing a card game, and you suddenly came in. There was a knife there in the room and you used your puppetry to throw it at him. It stuck his arm straight to the wall, and you got another knife, I don't know from where, and stabbed and stabbed till I couldn't see his face through all the blood on it. From the angle I saw—dreamed—I couldn't see your face through any of it. If you looked furious or blank, I didn't see." His brow might have lifted a millimeter through it all. Perhaps.

"Sasori." They both understood the importance in that: Sakura hardly ever addressed her mate by name, so that when she did, that in itself would be special praise. "You're showing a strange lack of reaction. I expected a little surprise when you found out this wasn't a sex dream."

His tail didn't even twitch. "There's nothing to be surprised about. If someone attacked you, I would murder them." Only now did Sasori show a little surprise. "You look so shocked."

"You'd kill someone…because they bothered me?" she almost stuttered.

"Someone like that man—absolutely."

"With a knife?" she asked a bit fearfully.

"With my claws. So long as he dies." Inwardly deciding that she'd rather not discuss this at all, Sakura set her book down on the chair and started to leave. She made the foolish and quite avoidable mistake of walking past the prince, who grasped her arm as she started to go by. He probably felt the rush of air near his hand, which was her own spare hand almost moving to rip his away, but stopped. "You're afraid of me."

Since she may as well fear the wrath of a scared Hinata, Sakura had to laugh. Instead of denying, though, she moved her trapped hand closer till she touched the prince's cheek, and left it there for him to press against like an affectionate cat. "Then I suppose my next goal will be to contain your murderous rage when I devote my time to helping Kiba advance on Hinata."

"Don't make jokes about this subject." he said warningly.

For Sakura, this was just an invitation to rile him up more. "Don't let your firewood burn before winter, old man."

"Don't quote me phrases I taught you, little one." The puppetry was alive again, pulling Sakura—with some decent grace, one could say—onto the prince again. He stretched his body and set her on his stomach to straddle him—a technique she'd been taught the night before. "If you are wanting my attention—" he paused to pull her by the shoulder down to him "—there are better ways."

Perhaps there would have been a reply to that. We'll never know. Sakura didn't dare try to speak when the prince's velvet tongue attacked the collarbone that her tunic left slightly vulnerable. It started low and traveled up until a satisfactory mew fought its way out of her mouth. Sasori's tail played the game as well, sweeping softly up from the edge of the large satin sofa till it found Sakura, and slowly caressed every lithe feature of her it could reach. Merely to release some tension in her arm, and for once not out of instinct or habit, Sakura moved up a bit and was pulled down again. Twin fangs nipped her cheek as consequence.

Somewhere in the midst of showing his love, Sasori moved upwards until he was sitting, and kept his lover straddled in his lap as she had been for the last few minutes. He forced their lips together again, and this time Sakura found the trembling courage to kiss back. What Sakura assumed was a horrified pause was actually a shiver of surprise and pleasure. Regardless, she stopped and hoped she hadn't done something wrong.

To give his opinion on this change, the prince took his lover's hand and slid it up under his shirt. Sakura had the impression that she was welcome to move lower if she so pleased. She also had the impression that when the door opened across the enormous room, the prince was quite angry.

"Hey, Sas, me and Kakuzu were wondering why in the hell Noriker's embassy—"

With an effort against the force that tried to pull her down, Sakura peeked her head over the top of the couch. Far off she spotted two of the prince's advisors. Hidan, the felis who liked to keep his feline ears hidden in his hair, was a religious zealot who had a special arrangement with the local government that allowed him to murder criminals for his god. Sakura knew him well, since she had forged the ("prince's") royal signature that allowed him to use the criminals. The other, Kakuzu, she was less familiar with, but it was to him and his nearly-fatally-injured, stitch-wreathed face she spoke now.

"I'm sorry, this is about the _worst _time and place you could have picked. Come back later—_don't!_" She clamped a hand over Sasori's mouth, sensing he was about to make an unwelcome remark or noise to the newcomers. "The last one wasn't to you two—" Kakuzu was already smirking and pulling Hidan back. One of Hidan's feline ears popped up out of his slick hair as he realized just what he'd interrupted.

When the door closed Sakura removed her hand. "They come in, they can obviously hear, and you just keep going?" Sakura tried to pretend she didn't feel his tail teasing hers, but it drifted away soon enough.

In her eyes, the aroused and loving way his hands caressed her face was of much deeper significance than the smirk. She felt the dark presence of him around her just as she had in the parlor the day before, and felt instinctively that if it grabbed onto her now, there would almost certainly be no escaping it. So she asked now: "If I cheated on you—" And the crimson tail that had been about the inch up her shirt halted. Sakura froze with fear, and stayed so even when his eyes read that it was a question born of curiosity. "Would you kill him?"

The answer was a quiet and firm, "Yes," and then a descent into feeling and soul deeper than the ocean.

666

November 25th, 2:09 AM

666

The dream was awful.

As an omnipotent god of the dream realm, Sakura Who Was Really Sleeping shivered in her slumber. It was strangely realistic, with herself, her mate, their lives, and even their personalities all featured. Featured also was the death of all these things.

The first thing one would see in this dream would be Sakura, bleeding, wounded, panting and probably ill as well. She dragged herself up a dim hallway with torn wallpaper and ripped floorboards. Her shirt was a thin, breathing, red one meant for pleasant outdoor activity by a female of lean and thin proportions. It was expensive and practical and had been a gift to her. This shirt was bloodstained and contained half a dozen holes near the right hip which failed to cover wounds.

Worse still were the numerous, slitted wounds in her arms which indicated she had been cruelly stabbed multiple times in each one. Each breath expelled more blood from her mouth, each step made her sway on her feet and each change in light dilated her unusually dark eyes.

The Sakura in this dream found an end to the dim hallway. It was not far from a pair of elegant double-doors that had been slashed and torn at by felis claws. One door lay half-askew and the other open as it would be for a guest. Outside, dawn was coming. Just inside the mysterious building, Sakura lowered herself against the wall near a half-dead body.

It was the body of her mate, which she had dragged to this entryway by herself not long ago, so that he could be found and healed as soon as possible. His body, too, showed signs of a long and eventful battle, but it seemed he had taken more substantial wounds, for he lay on his back and could do little more than keep his eyes open.

He had the strength to move his head to look at her, though, and spent all remaining power in staying conscious. Sasori took in the wounds on her arms, her four bleeding ears, each angry red cut, the entire shaking, poisoned body. Sakura saw him looking at her in this way. She saw herself reflected in his dark chocolate eyes.

Sakura, within the dream, leaned her head back and exhaled slowly, jaggedly, and said to the ceiling above, "It's okay. It's okay." The building's charred roof above her eyes swam and swayed, and pain was again bringing her numb arms to life, yet refusing them movement. She stared down at her mate and saw his eyes had widened some. Did he know? "It's okay." she told him with one of her sweet, brilliant smiles.

After a few minutes she leaned towards the floor and used the wall to guide herself down slowly and not fall. Her near-useless arms bled profusely on the silken, torn rug on the floor and she looked her mate in the eye again. "It's…okay. Everything will be okay," she told the redheaded man. His eyes stared and his breathing quickened in horror; contrastingly, Sakura wore a small smile and with each passing second her eyes turned more peaceful.

Sasori watched the beautiful light fade from her eyes; the hours following that event were undeniably the worst of his life. Sakura woke up when those hours had ended.

It had been she who had brought them back up to his chamber (he wouldn't go there himself; a cat-and-mouse game was required to get him out of the library) and she was glad this was so. Completely naked in a room where no fire had been lit that night, in November, it was colder than she liked. Suna meant "desert" in ancient Fellan, which suited its fiercely hot summer days and freezing nights. It must be said, though, that it wasn't only the cold that shook her.

Her dream had not been a prophetic one. But its realism had stunned her—her dreams were always made of nonsense—and now she felt the warm breath of her lover on her ears and wondered if she should scoot herself closer to him. Sakura did a double-take on that, and had a whole new storm of thoughts, circling around one central idea…

Apothecaries and healers around the world agreed that a felis' heart was proportionately larger than a human's, and legend said that this allowed for more emotion to filter through. It meant, allegedly, that humans were incapable of feeling the same pain a felis could, and also were incapable of understanding (unless through experience) the depth with which their brother species could and would show its love.

Sakura, a member of the "brother species," was embarrassed that she probably did not understand it herself. She knew that she would not resort to such a thing if Sasori unexpectedly died. Could he say the same?

666

December 31s, 7:46 PM

666

The day of judgment had come. It was one of the things Sakura had wanted to avoid as a child, one of the driving forces behind her childhood goal. _The parties. _

By default, honestly, members of any royal family were required to both host and make appearances at populous and sophisticated gatherings, complete with musicians playing quietly in corners, ice sculptures standing guard over tables, gowns as expensive a dozen racehorses, polite chatting about nothing, and a depressing lack of fun things to do. Rumors and then gossip and then official news had spread across the continent that the prince's kit had at long last become his mate (a few years late, some said) and his councilmen and advisors were given the task of creating a social gala that would make this fact open and public as possible.

The last bit was the only comfort Sakura could have: it was public. Anyone who could make it to Fell's royal city on the last day of the year was welcome to attend and enjoy themselves, though their dress was to be strictly formal. And well-dressed farmers, weavers and horse breeders were bound to be better company than well-dressed politicians.

Presently, Sakura was riding in the fields towards the city, atop her favorite family horse, Foxtrot, her mother and aunt behind her on Maraconn and Camille. It was nighttime, the city was full of lights and anxious, excited people, all in their best clothes.

Tsunade and Shizune were in matching green dresses and bracelets. Sakura, in black knee-length gown and pink slippers that had been selected for her out of the blue, felt ostentatious and flashy. The pink sash that tied into a small bow around her waist was meant to be feminine and eye-catching, but Sakura wasn't sure if she liked it. At least it wasn't strapless, she told herself again and again.

In fact, she told herself this so many times she hardly noticed the countless people gazing at her as she rode up the street to the castle. A makeshift stable had been set up in the middle of the streets for the hundreds of horses people used to transport themselves to the city, and Sakura and her family parked theirs in the first open spots available, exactly where royalty should not be putting their horses. Sakura looked to her family for reassurance but didn't get anything but a violin shoved in her face.

"You know you're expected to play," her mother reminded her. "And the Song of Storm has to be played at least once. Musicians will be hearing it tonight and taking it all across the continent."

"Of course, we're not trying to pressure you!" Shizune giggled.

Her niece snatched the violin and bow, stuffed them into the family's most presentable (least wrinkly and almost seamless) satchel. Foxtrot tapped his soft muzzle on her bare shoulder and the pink-haired felis ruffled his mane before ascending the castle stairs with dozens of others. She passed familiar faces and non, and swore she saw a familiar face from Twilight Wood as she passed through the castle's enormous, open doors. Within them were all stereotypical, fancy party articles, common folk in fine dress, and more. She was enraptured, though, with the glass sculptures hanging from the ceiling, of stallions and panthers and warriors, that had been fitted with candles inside them to create godly lights.

Tsunade rested her hand on her daughter's shoulder. For a few moments mother and daughter watched the glass carvings while the musicians in the south corner played a soft, nearly tearful melody. They could only stare so long before Tsunade ended the fine moment by speaking. "You should go find your mate. You know everything in here is for you."

"He does too much." Sakura smiled.

Her mother slapped her on her bare back, laughed, "Get used to it!" and whisked away. Left alone wearing an evening dress and carrying a violin in a bag, Sakura stood there and didn't really know where to go.

The first hour of the party Sakura did nothing but drift and admire the sculptures. She was interrupted by some group of people or other every thirty seconds, naturally, sometimes politicians and sometimes tourists and sometimes old friends. Half of them realized she was carrying her violin and asked for a quick demonstration. She met Hinata once and the two of them even formed their own concert when some families from the eastern tip of Caspia asked for Sakura to play "the prince's song". Since that was hundreds of miles away, Sakura obliged and played the song, and added in a second, so-far-unnamed piece. For this song, Hinata provided breathy, angelic vocals.

Let us not forget the many children who flocked to Sakura and let her know they all wanted to be musicians like the beautiful princess when they grew up. Sakura confirmed the rumor that she was a very accomplished trickster, and promised if they stuck around till midnight, she'd show them one of her greatest tricks of all.

It was much more fun than Sakura expected. Parties open to the public were infinitely more fun than those open only to stuffy, lying aristocrats. It was nearly ten o'clock in the evening when she saw Sasori for the first time that night, and she saw his hand before any other part of him. She had just bid farewell for Shona and Tao, two tailors she had met years ago on her journey to Morgan, when she felt long, cool fingers touching her hair and furred ear.

"Where have you been?" he asked.

Sakura paused to feel the soothing pleasure on her sensitive ears. "Oh, everywhere. You know me." She turned to face him, and was a bit stunned by the perfectly-painted claws and flattering black tunic he'd chosen to wear tonight. It wasn't that he went around scruffy and ungroomed normally, but perhaps he'd spent a bit of extra time doing…something…tonight.

His hand moved slowly down her face. "You're pleased with the way I look?"

"You look excessively attractive tonight. I have no idea how you did it." He blinked twice, apparently not expecting a compliment so blunt. Sakura took the opportunity to distract him. "Did you know there's going to be a star shower tonight? The first of its kind in a hundred and forty years."

"You think I chose to host the event tonight because it's the last day of the year? Have I not told you how insignificant that is to me?"

She smiled a bit. "Well it's _quite_ significant to us _young'uns, _and lots of humans, too…and I like stargazing. In fact, I'm going outside to watch for when it starts. If you wanna come, then come." Predictably, Sasori followed and gave a brief listing of the ladders placed along the walls of many buildings in the city for people to climb and stargaze upon. The ladders were, of course, for humans. Most felis who wanted rooftop seats merely had to give a good, strong jump. This is what our handsome prince and young pinkette did. Staff members and advisors from the castle kept curious onlookers a few buildings away from them. Sakura did not like this forced isolation at all and was about to say so when the first star was seen.

She stared wide-eyed at the sky like she had done when she was a kit. Having not seen a real star shower in over three years, Sakura watched the first speeding white missile with her cherry lips parted in awe.

Its followers came slowly but surely. For some three minutes there was a real, never-ending shower where the stars shot through the night a dozen at a time. Sakura was not the only one close to tears upon seeing such beauty, even when the stars became less frequent. The pinkette became conscious of nothing but the wonder of nature above her. When Sasori's tail touched her back and he said her name, she almost chose to ignore him, but ended up giving a distracted, "Hnnh?" He touched her again. Said her name again. She tried not to look annoyed when she turned to look at him.

Any annoyance she felt faded away. Again she wondered what in the world he had done to make himself so ungodly beautiful tonight (indeed, beautiful, for "attractive" was not powerful enough.) Perhaps his eyes reflected a falling star. Perhaps they shone on their own.

"Will you marry me?"

Up front and without introduction: how this question traditionally was for their species, as well as without a ring (which was a silly human thing, anyhow). But this question was directed at Sakura Hokage, who tended to dislike all responses and concepts traditional and ancient. So of course refused to respond in the traditional and ancient way.

There were a few awful, uncertain seconds when she did nothing but stare. Sasori must have guessed at what she was planning when she gathered her legs and tail up under her; he completely allowed himself to be pounced upon.

"Yes! Yes! What took you so long?" There were few occasions where she had held him so tightly, shown her affection so openly—marriage proposal was known to do that to love-shy souls. The prince absorbed every scrap of it possible, and then a bit more. The nearby onlookers who guessed what had happened and cheered and whistled hardly seemed to exist.

Within herself, a dozen other emotions forcibly mixed with Sakura's joy. Fear—did this mean she was a step closer to suicide should he die before her? A dash of shame—she'd spent over half her life trying to avoid this, and no matter how much mother nature didn't give a damn, that annihilated plan would stay with her till she died. Excitement—as a queen, she could do almost anything: behead any criminal she deemed heinous without the waste of a trial, eat Tenten's gourmet food every day of her life, hold a knife to the prince's throat and not be charged with treason! And of course anxiety—would he want a ridiculous, extravagant wedding like her mother was bound to want? And would she be respected and admired by the people, as her mate was?

Sasori read every one of these things in her eyes.

Sakura moved to lie next to him and kept one leg brushing against his. She alternated between watching the remainder of the falling stars and turning to the right at the prince. He kept his eyes faultlessly on her, she noticed. "What?" she grinned. "Did you think I'd say no? I considered, just to see your face when I did…but decided not to."

A claw painted raven-black moved a strand of hair from her face. "I love you."

"Yes," she said back very dreamily. Without looking she touched a hand to Sasori's face and caressed the skin. He closed his eyes and purred in delight at being petted. "Don't go getting sexed up yet." Sakura muttered. "You still have to say goodbye to your guests at midnight. And I promised a lot of people that at midnight I'd show them my greatest trick ever. And after that I have to take my horse home. Then I'll return." Already the love-happy Sakura had retreated.

"What trick shall this be?" Sasori asked when at last he had stopped purring.

"You haven't seen it yet. Nobody has. I've been saving it for months. I promise it'll be my greatest triumph!" At the last sentence she shot a finger proudly to the heavens.

And an hour or so later, she did indeed perform her greatest triumph. The shower had ended and the guests returned to the castle parlor to bid farewell and goodnight to everyone they had met tonight. Sasori put on a practiced, striking and wise face as he gave the formal goodbye to all that had attended the party. Sakura played the song she was obligated to play in front of uncountable people, and it was suggested by more than a few audience members that they get a last treat for the night, and a few different things were meant by this. What was received by the people was an announcement by the prince himself that his mate had accepted his hand, and a not-quite-brief kiss between them that, many saw, the prince did not want to end.

Following the kiss, Sakura was left standing with her mate's right hand in her left, and her violin and bow in her own right. She took a step back from him and turned to face the vast crowd standing under the glass statues. Knowledge of her "greatest trick ever" had spread to almost everyone, and now all eyes and ears and even some tails stood at attention in anticipation of it. Sakura smiled and gave a small, devious laugh.

Then, suddenly, in a blink—she disappeared.

Not even Kiba Inuzuka could get her to tell him how it had been done.

666

I could have made the last three paragraphs like three pages long. Since it's late and Bleach is coming on in like two minutes, I decided to end it quickly. Comments? 1.) The last bit about Sakura's disappearing act was fun to think up. What is she capable of at eighteen, when she snuck into an armored castle _with a fucking giraffe _at age eight?

2.) And of course I had difficulty writing the proposal, and the beginning scene. (Oh, _God, _the beginning scene!) I tried to avoid cheesiness, naturally, but of course it's still there. Then again, this is a medieval fairytale; you should be surprised such cheesiness came into the story so late.

3.) The dream Sakura had leaves open many paths for the plot to follow. I have a couple ideas. I could continue this, perhaps say the dream was prophetic after all. Maybe Sakura goes to great lengths to keep it from coming true. Or maybe it all ends here and Sakura just had a bad dream (a dream which ended in Sasori committing suicide, if you didn't get that.) Whatever happens, I guess I'll always leave this story open for continuation. I could end up putting in ten pages of fluffy romance whenever the hell I feel like it, or giving it another arc. Don't expect anything too brilliant...too soon.

Ta…Storm


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